Perfect Strangers
by BellaFortuna
Summary: Bonnie Bennett agreed to marry Damon Salvatore under duress is what she would testify to. She thought it might be easy considering he showed no real interest in her, however, whenever Damon made an investment he expected a return. Marriage between lovers was rough, between two strangers almost impossible. Can they make it work? AH/AU
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Hello Bamon fandom! I wanted to do my part and contribute to this explosive pair.

**Summary:** This is an AU/AH story where Bonnie and Damon are married but they didn't exactly marry for orthodox reasons. When it comes to power, for right now things are severely one-sided with Damon seemingly holding all the keys, pulling all the strings, but what looks to be a dire situation and set in stone can change with the snap of the fingers.

**Rating: **R with MA material trickled throughout.

**Pairings: **Bonnie/Damon (main), Bonnie/Klaus (friendship), and others when necessary.

**Disclaimer: These characters belong to LJ Smith/The CW. I own nothing but the plot. **

* * *

Herein lied the problem. She was her own worst enemy. Everyone felt that way about themselves from time to time, but Bonnie Bennett knew it to be fact. Anytime something began to go according to plan, or an ounce of favor was shown her way, she would panic and look for a way to get out of her good fortune. The idea of fulfilling a dream or being successful scared her into hiding, into walking away, into submission leaving her little choice but to start over from scratch.

She didn't know how to stop herself. Didn't know how to accept something good and positive happening in her life simply because she deserved it. It was all foreign to her.

To those standing on the outside looking in they would argue she had it made, and she did to a certain degree. But all that glittered wasn't gold. She was married before the age of twenty-five, lived in a nice, fancy house with a full staff to run it, had access to a ridiculous pile of cash. Bonnie Bennett had the kind of looks that would cause a woman to question her own sexuality, and could tempt any man to follow her with his nose wide open.

And she couldn't forget about the man she was married to. No. Couldn't forget about him.

He was undeniably handsome. Jet black hair, ice blue eyes that could pull off being cold and compassionate at dizzying intervals, and a body that Homer would have written an epic poem about—that in a nutshell described her husband. A perfect piece of human flesh that contained no human soul.

Don't get her wrong. He had his moments where he'd draw back the curtain and would let her take a peek inside, but that was all she was allowed. A peek. Bonnie couldn't take notes, pictures, couldn't even get an autograph of his conscience before the doors were invariably slammed shut in her face. Her marriage hadn't been forged out of the iron of love, but the metal of convenience.

Convenience for her—blind opportunity for him.

She did her best not to think about how she came to be in this predicament as she swept the brush up her scalp, pulling her hair into a ponytail that she would eventually fashion into a chignon.

Music played softly in the background while she readied for tonight's social gathering her husband informed her of at the last possible second. Bonnie had been set to enjoy a night off from her arm piece duties, and had actually been excited and looking forward to lounging around in her jogging pants, oversized T-shirt, and toe socks stuffing her face with high calorie snacks while watching a movie. Those plans had been assiduously cancelled with hardly any consideration about her personal feelings on the matter. Bonnie had been under the impression he'd be flying across the United States for some conference in Rhode Island. Nope.

She sighed heavily and began the time consuming task of pinning her hair.

Mouth stuffed with bobby pins, Vivaldi trilling in the background, Bonnie almost didn't see that dark spot looming in the doorway watching her actions intently.

It had taken her sometime to get used to him suddenly appearing. And it had amused him greatly when she would jump after he caught her unawares. Bonnie lost count of the number of times she shrieked at him not to do that, and he ignored her wishes, and continued to enter rooms she was occupying without making a single sound. Scaring her gave him a perverse sense of joy and accomplishment, and it made Bonnie all the more bitter that she had so little power in her own marriage.

Again, she had to remind herself they didn't marry because they were sick with love for one another. In fact, Bonnie didn't want to examine too closely the real reason for her union. Her teeth would start grinding, and she would curse the day her half-brother Llewellyn Wilson was born.

It was his fault she was in this mess!

Her leaf green eyes shifted and stared at her significant other through the reflection of the mirror.

Leaning against the doorjamb, long legs crossed at the ankles, sinister smirk on his face attired in all black was business mogul Damon Salvatore. He could see the frown lines etching themselves deeper around his wife's mouth, and the dimple in her puckered brow was two seconds away from becoming a sinkhole in her forehead.

Their eyes met in the mirror and his expression didn't change, shift, or soften. Bonnie continued to look perturbed by his sudden appearance and he didn't cease in undressing her visually. Damon was all too familiar in what lied underneath the midnight blue lace that adorned her breasts and shielded her pussy. He groaned deeply at the thought alone and soon his mind—which was always a filthy wonderland began to envision her stretched out on their bed, thighs splayed and wide open giving him a bird's eye view of her delights.

She was a beautiful woman who titillated his senses without mercy. And he didn't want her to have mercy on him. As much as he loved screwing her, and hearing his name coming from her lips, grudgingly while he plowed into her, Bonnie held back and that frustrated the hell out of him. She could be so unerringly docile it made Damon despise the very sight of her sometimes. And whenever she got into that mood that's when he would deem it necessary to teach her a lesson.

This marriage was a contract in which they could both be sole beneficiaries if they worked together. Six months in and things had been fine. Damon's friends and constituents would say he and Bonnie were a perfect match even if their union had been sudden. They were alike in beauty. They perpetuated the illusion they were the couple in the room you had to get to know because they gave off such a strong air of adventure, mystery, and romanticism that leaving without being introduced and trading niceties seemed like a crime.

A year later and things were falling apart.

Behind closed doors, Bonnie would retreat within herself leaving Damon out in the cold. And instead of knocking on the door and asking for entrance, Damon would make himself scarce and ignored her just as his wife secretly preferred. Whenever she was being unfairly temperamental, he would in his own way remind his little wife that other women would stop at nothing to climb into his bed, and make all his wishes come true, and that she should be thankful _he _decided to marry _her_.

Usually that would leave Bonnie in a jealous stupor she'd try to deny was there by not speaking to him. Or she'd answer his questions in monosyllabic responses that only augmented his desire to bash her head open to see if anything was inside.

This push and pull they had had been exciting and now it was beyond irritating to Damon. He didn't just want a wife in name and paper only. However, he'd be the first to admit he didn't exactly know how to be a husband. It couldn't have been all that hard, he postulated, and that's why after five dates he proposed to Bonnie and she accepted—well she didn't exactly have a choice. Two months later they were married and these perfect strangers were still fighting on how to mesh their lives together.

The most obvious thing they could do was talk to one another, but Damon had always struggled with his emotions often teetering on the line that separated volatile and calm. Yet he always seemed to find himself tap dancing on the volatile side of things.

People bent to his will mostly out of fear. An emotional Damon Salvatore was a ruthless, unforgiving asshole who drank tears for breakfast.

Deep down, Damon didn't want to treat his wife with the same deference he bestowed on his employees and business partner, but it sometimes couldn't be helped. Bonnie lived in his world and hadn't fully gotten with the program yet.

"What are you wearing tonight?" he asked.

Hearing his voice made Bonnie blink. She honestly didn't expect him to say anything. Damon had an annoying habit of watching her, following her around with his eyes if they were in the same room, and not saying a word to her. It drove Bonnie crazy. When she couldn't put up with his scrutiny that's when she opted to leave the house altogether knowing he'd just seek her out and start the process all over again.

Bonnie shrugged. Her walk-in almost boutique like closet was lined with one notable designer after another. Damon had someone organize her space since he was anal about order. Everything was color coordinated and broken down into style so her pants and jeans weren't haphazardly mixed in with her evening gowns and coats. It helped shave time off finding what she wanted to wear and that was about it.

"Wear red," Damon said and it wasn't a suggestion.

Bonnie suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. "Don't you think that would be a little clichéd and ostentatious? I thought you said this was a black tie affair?"

"I did but I want _you _in red. You're the lady of the house. You should stand out."

Lady of the house, Bonnie inwardly snorted. More like a domesticated escort.

As if he read her thoughts, Damon pushed away from the door and swaggered over to her. As much as Bonnie wanted to deny it, Damon had a walk that made one stop short and just…drink in the sight of him.

He loomed behind her, planting his hands on the edge of the vanity. A battle of wills commenced as they stared unwaveringly at one another in the mirror. Bonnie always felt so small whenever Damon did this, but in a strangely weird way—protected.

Damon never hurt her physically, but he left scars in other places, and she did what she could return the favor. Bonnie wasn't stupid or aloof. Although Damon would never come out and say he wanted her to open up and trust him, it was exactly what he wanted. And when he couldn't get it that's when he would do things to spite her. Flirt with other women. Come home late making her think the worst, not respond to her phone calls whenever she worked up the nerve to call him, making cutting jokes and remarks about her in front of others. He did it all to remind her she was indebted to him. She wanted to treat their marriage like a business transaction then he'd treat her like property.

His fingers slid down her arm to her hand and he sank his digits between hers, their rings butting together.

Bonnie hadn't wanted anything flashy to symbolize she was a married woman. Damon had compromised and bought a simple diamond band to match his solid platinum one and that was it.

A shiver that began with their joined hands slowly crept up her forearm, continuing to her shoulder and began gliding toward her chest making her skin pebble.

His touch was her kryptonite. All he had to do to disarm her was touch her, press his body intimately close to hers, kiss her, tunnel his fingers into her panties and strum her body like a lute. She came alive under his ministrations. Became greedy and rapacious for the sensations that pummeled her whenever Damon filled her to the brim.

"My business partner from Sweden will be here tonight and I want to make a good impression. So you, _wife,_" and he almost growled that acerbically at Bonnie, "will see to it that he leaves here with happy thoughts and a willingness to sign over more shares of the company to me. I know there's more to you than what's between your legs so be a doll and make me proud tonight."

Bonnie's blank expression became murderous at the end of Damon's spiel who grinned and dropped a kiss to her temple.

The hand that had been holding hers got missing and trailed along her shoulder before circling around to her front and began skimming over her heaving chest. Damon palmed her breast, and his grin spread until his teeth were showing as he kneaded her breast.

Bonnie felt her hand twitching because she wanted to slap him, punch him, do something to rebel. She stood up abruptly causing Damon to jerk backwards otherwise the crown of her head would have smashed into his chin.

She turned around and Damon squared himself for an attack.

Damon could see her skin flushing in her anger. He licked his lips and it would make him a liar if he said seeing Bonnie this enraged wasn't stirring his libido. He felt his shaft thickening and lengthening within the cotton confines of his boxer briefs, and the bulbous head of his prick would be weeping in a matter of seconds.

In her eyes, Damon read the declaration of hate beaming from her orbs.

Sometimes her strength could be found in her silence. When someone wanted you to have an adverse reaction to back up their claim—in certain situations it was best to have no reaction at all which was still having a reaction. Bonnie had learned that growing up in watching her parents argue and seeing her dad shutting down, closing off whenever her mom would get to ranting. It only served to infuriate her mom more, but she noticed it gave her dad unmitigated power which usually resulted in Abby Bennett backing down and storming off.

She put that technique into practice right now knowing Damon wanted her to be defiant and fight him on this, call him a few hundred choice names where he would inevitably turn the tables, and they'd be ripping off barriers and sinking into one another.

Not tonight. Sex wasn't going to be their referee.

Damon wasn't going to get under her skin.

"Can you _leave_ so I can get dressed?" Bonnie looked at a point over Damon's shoulder.

He huffed and found himself a little disappointed. "I see you don't want to be any fun tonight. Be downstairs in an hour," he sulked off partially slamming the door after his exit.

Bonnie pivoted on her bare feet and eyed her reflection. Her makeup was done to accentuate her full, off centered lips, the almond shape of her eyes, her high cheekbones. Her hair was almost finished but for the moment she didn't move.

Damon wanted her to make him proud. Well, she'd do more than that.

* * *

**BD**

Male laughter dominated the sound of the room as quite a few people craned their necks doing their level best to see what was so hilarious. There were plenty of cliques and groups composed of four or more people that one had to be invited to join before pleasantries and gossip was traded. Those who weren't as familiar with some of the other attendees nursed their drinks, and waited for the prime opportunity to slither in, make introductions, and begin the networking process that would hopefully garner business, an ally, and definitely not make an enemy.

Damon stood among his usual rowdy circle of lawyers, politicos, a judge, and a chief executive officer of a restaurant empire. He sipped from his tall flute of champagne, one hand lodged in his pocket as he listened to bullshit story after bullshit story pour from the lips of his fiercest competitor, Alaric Saltzman.

The two of them never really got along, but went out of their way to show solidarity amid the lions which circled predatorily around Damon's spacious foyer. He laughed at the appropriate times, made a quip here and there which had the right amount of hostility, but other than that he kept his cool.

Checking the hour on his timepiece, Damon looked around the room wondering when Bonnie would grace his guests with her tardy ass presence. A good wife would have been by his side to greet their first guest of the evening, but he knew it sometimes took perfection longer than an hour to get ready. His patience, however, was waning as well as his ability to keep the sneer off his face while Saltzman dominated the conversation.

A hush lulled all conversations and Damon didn't even need to part his eyes from the double D breasts of the woman who suddenly found herself in the good ole boys circle standing beside him. His smile was slow and easy as they journeyed from her creamy flesh exposed in the low cut of her black dress, up the column of her neck, glancing briefly at her blatantly red mouth before settling on her hazel eyes.

He couldn't recall her name right off the bat, but he vaguely remembered it began with the letter R.

A sharp whistle broke Damon from his minor distraction and he saw Alaric scanning someone with interest.

"Damn, you might be a bastard, Damon, but I find myself envying you in one area and _one _area only."

He didn't really need see for himself the commotion his wife was causing for it to puff his chest out like a rooster. But in an unrushed manner, Damon searched through the milling crowd for his little wife.

The saliva in his throat suddenly turned very dry and became incredibly hard to swallow. Leave Bonnie to choose the one dress that clung to her skin like latex paint in the loudest color she could find.

She had taken her hair out of the updo she had styled it into earlier, and the strands now hung in tightly coiled waves that brushed the top of her bouncing tits. The hem hit her around mid-thigh; and if she bent over for any reason she would show the world a peak of the heaven only he had gotten to know.

Damon had been partly floored when he discovered, on their wedding night no less that Bonnie had been a virgin. He was her first and he was determined to be her last.

Bonnie stopped to say hello, accepted kisses on the cheek, admiration on her bandage dress that paid homage to her bust and curved to her voluptuous ass. True, this dress might be more appropriate for a night in South Beach Miami and not an intimate gathering at her home, but she was sending a message. Damon might be her husband, but he wasn't her owner or her father.

She took her sweet time making her way toward him knowing with each second she prolonged being at his side, earning lascivious stares and ogles from men only made his temperature spike another degree.

Bonnie accepted a glass of champagne from one of the waiters hired to keep the guests supplied with food and drink.

"Thank you," she murmured and saw the waiter's cheeks turn an interesting shade of pink.

That made her laugh darkly.

"You're causing quite a stir, love," ascertained a cultured voice that was much too close for comfort.

Bonnie craned her neck and looked over her shoulder. A pair of hooded aqua eyes gazed down at her with obvious interest making them glint mischievously.

Full, blood red lips parted and Bonnie had to resist the urge to lick her own. To stall, Bonnie took a small sip of champagne and on the sly noted his attributes.

The man had curly, sandy blonde hair cut close to his scalp with a tamed five o'clock shadow around his jaw. He was tall, about Damon's height but maybe an inch taller. Broad shoulders filled out his suit jacket. In the recessed lighting his pale skin appeared almost olive, but those lips were his best attribute in Bonnie's humble opinion. Two perfect pillows that probably whispered the mysteries of the world in an ear willing to listen or…

"I don't know what you mean," she switched the nature of her thoughts.

The man shifted until he stood in front of her. He outstretched his hand and Bonnie stared at his appendage before looking into his eyes. Blindly she placed her hand in his, his fingers cool to the touch.

"Don't be coy. You know exactly what I mean." Pause. "I'm Niklaus Mikaelson, but those who fear me call me Klaus," he smirked and looked her over from head to toe, his grin widening by the second.

Bonnie smiled a little and fidgeted a bit under his heavy perusal. "Bonnie Bennett but people just call me Bonnie."

Klaus tilted his head. "Bennett? I thought for sure that you're _the _Missus Damon Salvatore."

"She is."

Every muscle in Bonnie's body tensed and she immediately wiggled her hand free from Klaus' grip. She avoided looking at Damon pretty sure he was delivering his bug-eyed expression that could mean a number of things.

Klaus regarded Damon and the two shook hands. His gaze went back and forth between the pair trying his damndest to figure out what was going on. Why would Bonnie introduce herself as Bennett and not Salvatore? He knew some women wanted to retain their independence even while married and refused to take their husband's last name. Yet he couldn't be the sure that was the case, and why did he care in the first damn place? He was not the type to wedge himself in the middle of domestic disputes, but for some inexplicable reason Klaus couldn't tear his eyes away from Bonnie.

She was lovely to behold but didn't seem as if she were madly in love with her husband. If anything she looked irritated with him whereas Damon was practically glaring at them as if they committed some egregious offense.

"I see you've met my _wife. _Honey," Damon addressed Bonnie. She reluctantly brought her attention back to him. "This is my special friend from Sweden that I wanted you to meet."

It was on the tip of Bonnie's tongue to ask Klaus outright what was so special about him, but she swallowed that back down.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Mikaelson."

"Please call me Klaus," he insisted.

Bonnie smiled. "Sorry, but Damon hasn't told me much about you. What do you do exactly?"

"A little of this and that," Klaus answered vaguely. "I'm sure what I do for a living is the least of your interest at the moment."

"No, I'm sure whatever you do is fascinating. It's legal, right?" Bonnie teased.

Damon moved beside Bonnie, took her hand, and squeezed her fingers. She felt the pinch of pain and scowled while he delivered the fakest laugh anyone had ever heard.

"My little muffin has a crazy sense of humor."

"She does," Klaus agreed distractedly. He hadn't been offended by the question in the slightest. He knew for a fact that half the people currently in this house had businesses that weren't above board. "If it's all right with you, Damon I'd like Bonnie to show me around. It's not often I come to the States let alone the west coast, and you recently purchased this impressive piece of real estate, correct?"

"You would be right," Damon's nostrils flared.

Relinquishing Bonnie to Klaus was the last thing Damon wanted to do. Not with her in that dress, and not with the way he saw the Swede ogling her. However, he had an agenda and that was the most important thing he needed to be focused on at the moment.

Bringing Bonnie's hand up to his lips, Damon kissed her knuckles, leaned over and kissed her cheek, and delivered another one to the corner of her mouth.

"You look beautiful," he whispered in her ear.

Bonnie tried with all her might not to melt under his affection knowing it was partly for show and partly sincere.

"Thank you."

"Make sure he keeps his hands off you," Damon hissed next.

When he pulled back he saw heat waves radiating from her ears. He smiled broadly and let go of her hand.

Klaus stepped aside so that Bonnie could precede him. He cast one final look at Damon who held up his empty flute.

"I can give you a tour of the grounds," Bonnie said. "I don't know most of these people here."

The two of them disappeared into a semi-lit corridor lined with paintings which automatically drew Klaus' interest.

"How long have you been married to Damon?"

"A year and three months," Bonnie replied blandly.

"I'm guessing the honeymoon stage is over."

It never really began, Bonnie wanted to say. "You're not married?" she decided to take the heat off her back and throw it on him.

Klaus shook his head. "I was close once but she…died."

"I'm sorry," Bonnie voiced in lieu of having anything else to say.

"It's all right. Look," he laid a hand on Bonnie's shoulder to prevent her from walking farther. Bonnie's brow furrowed. "I know what it is your husband wants and using you is playing unfair and dirty. Let him know he can't have anymore shares of my family's company."

"I don't…"

"Yes, I'm sure you don't. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Missus Salvatore," Klaus walked away heading back to the party.

Bonnie released the breath she had been holding. She knew once the party cleared out and the house was empty of pretentious freeloaders, Damon would blame her for Klaus' refusal to agree to his proposal.

Digging the heel of her stiletto into the marble floor, Bonnie pressed her back against the wall. If she was going to get into trouble it might as well be something worth getting into trouble over.

It was time for this crowd to learn who Nicki Minaj was.

Chapter end.

**A/N: This ending seems a bit anticlimactic to me. But this was merely an introduction. So Bonnie married Damon for reasons unknown. Any guesses as to what the reason for their union is? And yes, I know we're all used to a head strong, take charge Bonnie, and she doesn't exactly fit that mold right now, but getting there is a journey. Let me know what you think. I'd really like to know if this is something you guys are interested in continuing to read. Thanks for even taking the time to read this work in progress. **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Hi everyone! A tremendous THANK YOU to everyone who's left a review and added to your lists. I really, really appreciate it, and I'm glad you find this little story interesting! Here is the latest. I hope you enjoy!

**Summary:** This is an AU/AH story where Bonnie and Damon are married but they didn't exactly marry for orthodox reasons. When it comes to power, for right now things are severely one-sided with Damon seemingly holding all the keys, pulling all the strings, but what looks to be a dire situation and set in stone can change with the snap of the fingers.

**Rating: **R with MA material trickled throughout.

**Pairings: **Bonnie/Damon (main), Bonnie/Klaus (friendship), and others when necessary.

***This chapter features dub-con.***

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters they belong to LJ Smith/CW Netowrk. I own the plot.

* * *

She slipped back into the foyer strategically placing herself where she would be seen and unseen. Bonnie had mastered the art of stealth in dodging her husband in a crowded room. This would be the only time she was thankful for being short. However, she only had a small window of opportunity before he sensed her presence. Bonnie had no clue how he was able to do it, but that bastard _always _managed to find her like a shark scenting a single drop of blood from miles away.

Perhaps she should have been flattered by that but she wasn't. It made Bonnie feel caged. She had spent her entire life under someone's thumb. Her parents. Her brother. The world at large. She was sick of it, but didn't know exactly know how to change the rules of the game, flip the script.

The beauty of her marriage, Bonnie conceded was she learned manipulation from her husband. He was an artist. The Picasso of underhandedness. Be patient, wait, and never draw attention to yourself that way they'd never see you coming. The only way she knew how to strike at something was preemptively.

Bonnie spotted Klaus speaking in hushed tones with a blonde-haired woman who shared similar features as him. He was too engaged to be interrupted and she was still picking up the pieces of her cracked face. Next on her tour she came upon Alaric Saltzman who gave off the vibe he was up to no good. The very sight of him irritated her which made him the prime candidate for what she had in mind.

However, she stalled when suddenly the hairs all over body took to the skies. She knew what that meant. Her own trusty spidey sense rang the alarm that Damon was looking right at her.

Boldly she met his eyes then deliberately let her gaze coast over to Alaric before settling on her husband once more. She couldn't have made her intent any more clear, but in the off chance Damon failed to receive the message, Bonnie pushed away from the wall she had been holding up and sashayed over to Alaric.

Two wrongs didn't make a right and goading a hungry lion was suicide, but ask Bonnie Bennett if she cared at the moment.

Tonight she had been in rare form running over every single cone in this obstacle course called marriage. And knowing what a short fuse Damon possessed Bonnie had essentially painted a large X on her back and a payload was sure to rain down on her head.

Swinging her vision back to Damon he gave up all pretense of paying attention to the buzz of conversation around him. A warning flashed in those silver-blue eyes for her to abort, detour, make a U-turn off the road she was taking.

Bonnie ignored that. Ignored him as she closed the distance between her and Alaric. When she was near enough she smiled brightly and tapped him on the shoulder.

His Bostonian accent only came into play when he was around a specific group of people. Everyone in their own way tried to add substance to their personality by pretending to be into one art form over another, listen to one type of music over another, or prefer one genre of literature to prove you developed your Id, Ego, and Superego. Alaric Saltzman's interests varied from the mundane to the gauche, but really he was a simple man.

He loved skin. Female skin. The kind that overflowed without the use of padding or underwire; the kind that exhibited how long limbs were. The kind that was shamelessly on display tonight.

Feeling the tap on his shoulder, Alaric peered down and an instant later he leered happily. "Bonnie! I was just thinking about you. Wow, you look a-m-a-z-i-n-g," he bent at the waist to lay an open mouth kiss on her cheek.

Bonnie resisted the urge to wipe his saliva off her flesh, and continued to smile at Alaric Saltzman like the Stepford wife everyone pegged her to be. "How have you been, Mr. Saltzman?"

The towering man shrugged and jiggled the ice cubes in his glass tumbler. "Please call me Alaric. We're friends," he flashed a smile. "Business is booming so I can't complain too much about that. Personally, there's always room for improvement. What about you? Will this place ever become filled with the pitter-patter of little feet?"

Shaking her head, Bonnie stepped a hair closer to Alaric and turned her body so that her back faced her lurking husband. "Kids aren't on the horizon."

"And that's a shame because if you were my wife we'd be in competition with the Duggards."

Those standing around chuckled politely. Bonnie included. Not only could the man be obtuse but archaic as well. Not every woman wanted to be a mother.

"I hear congratulations are in order," Alaric said suddenly.

Bonnie braced herself to hear his news.

"You were just made a member of the board at The Christie Foundation."

That earned Bonnie claps and whispers of congratulations. She accepted it gracefully but that position had been another cooked up ploy by her husband. She had to look busy to avoid being called exactly what she was—a trophy.

"Helping others is what I love to do," was Bonnie's formed response. "The Christie Foundation raises money and sends medical emissaries to help stop the spread of malaria. It's a good charity to be a part of."

"That it is," Alaric slurped his drink. "You have a beautiful home," he complimented.

"Thank you," Bonnie demurred. She didn't have a damn thing to do with the decorating. All she did upon saying "I do" was relocated her things into the house.

Her possessions were now stored in the garage because Damon had wrinkled his nose in distaste while she unpacked her belongings; garment pieces she had since high school and held sentimental value were collecting mold in boxes.

"_You're the wife of a CEO now and you need to look the part. The flared jeans and cardigans have to go, hun."_

Alaric shifted on his feet, his arm touching Bonnie's shoulder. She didn't outwardly recoil but inwardly she was as stiff as a board. "Damon says you give house tours. I'd love to see more of your…grounds."

Bonnie supposed this was the part she was to blush and bat her falsies. She did neither. "Maybe later."

Alaric visibly pouted and then drained the rest of the contents in his cup. He was about to ask Bonnie if she wanted to take a spin around the room since the musicians finally stopped playing funeral music when he saw a dark shadow gaining speed that was headed right for them.

The lady of the house didn't need to question why Alaric began to scowl.

Fingers crept along her back and settled on her hip and she was pulled into a solid wall of flesh.

"Damon, you're back. Again," Alaric deadpanned. "I was just congratulating Bonnie on becoming the newest board member at The Christie Foundation. Who did you have to bribe to make that happen? No offense, Bonnie."

"None taken."

"For your information my little wife comes with more than just a cute face. She holds her BA in International Studies and she's fluent in three languages. The foundation needed someone like her."

Several eyebrows rose and even Bonnie had to admit she was a little shocked hearing Damon defend her like this. Plus, her resume sounded pretty good when she wasn't the one rattling off her credentials.

Unfortunately that degree of hers was collecting dust like her clothes. Damon didn't want her to work because he said she didn't need to.

Bonnie constantly checked the calendar to make sure she was living in the twenty-first and not seventeenth century.

"She made a much better candidate than those poor little school girls you like to parade on your arm, Ric," Damon stepped closer to Alaric and stage whispered, "I was glad to hear those allegations of sexual perversion were dropped," he clapped the man on the shoulder.

Alaric's lips thinned and he almost shattered the glass in his hand. Damon stepped away, winked, and smirked.

Those standing around grumbled and shifted uncomfortably on their feet.

Damon turned his head in Bonnie's direction and lowered his voice so the smooth sound of it could be for her ears only. "You look tired, _wife_. Why don't you go upstairs, get undressed, and…wait for me."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm far from being tired. In fact I'm just getting started."

Damon's eyes hardened then. As far as he was concerned Bonnie's night was over. She served her purpose, which she couldn't even get that right, and it was time for her to climb back into her tower. She gave Alaric a boner if that had been her goal; she succeeded with flying colors. There was only so much disrespect he was going to take from her in one night.

"Dr. Saunders," Bonnie addressed an aging yet distinguished African American man with salt and pepper hair, stocky build, and permanently etched frown lines around his full mouth. "Would you like to dance?"

"I would be honored," he ditched his wife who visibly scowled and glared at the younger woman who slipped out from Damon's embrace and took the man's proffered limb.

Bonnie danced with Dr. Saunders as they carried on a lively conversation about oncology since he was one of the leading specialists in the area.

Damon surreptitiously observed his little wife noting how easy she could converse with others but became a clam with him. He hated the taste of jealousy that coated his throat, and it only spiked to higher levels when that bastard Saltzman slithered his way back over to Bonnie and coaxed her out on the impromptu dance floor.

The blonde from earlier found herself by his side and Damon figured why the hell not indulge her. She had great tits and he knew it would get a rise out of his wife. Bonnie was territorial whether she wanted to admit it or not.

It didn't take Albert Einstein's E=mc2 formula to figure out Damon was trying to goad her. Bonnie flicked her eyes in his direction.

His fingers were a little too low on that woman's back which was completely exposed in her dress, and if he licked his lips one more time…

Bonnie snapped her eyes away. Gawking would only fuel Damon's fire and she wasn't about to do that. If she showed she cared he'd use it against her. He already had the Ace of Spades tucked up his sleeve. She wasn't going to give him any more ammo.

That cocky laugh of Damon's unfortunately made Bonnie trail her vision back over to him. It was genuine laughter that transformed his face from some menacing, lethal man beast into that of a person who was easy going and loved life. He never laughed like that with her. Then again they didn't really have much to laugh about.

"You all right, Bonnie?" Alaric said.

"I'm fine," she didn't even blink or miss a step in her fabricated lie.

The gap of space that separated her from Alaric shrunk and they were touching from the belly down. Bonnie stared up at him. The expression on his face was serious.

"He doesn't make you happy, does he?"—Bonnie didn't comment—"He might have a nose and talent for business but he sucks at truly treasuring what he has."

Bonnie gulped. The palms of her hands became clammy and her chin might have been two seconds from quivering.

"With me no one _ever _has to question if they're being satisfied," Alaric whispered.

Damon looked across the room and the saliva in his throat became a rock and nearly choked him as it went down. He didn't like the way Bonnie was gazing up at Saltzman. They weren't speaking, but then they didn't need to because whatever they were feeling was being broadcast via those gateways to their souls.

What in hell was going on?

His little wife had failed to make the impression Damon had been hoping for. Klaus had smirked at him as if he wanted to say "nice try" before swiping another flute of champagne after he came back from the quickest tour in the history of tours. That had made Damon grit his teeth. Could she do nothing right?! Now she was doing that stupid eye thing with a man he hated with every fiber of his being. His little wife was messing up a sure thing.

Damon didn't make investments for profits to end up in the red but the black. He wanted to be notable in his field, not a notable failure. You're only as good as your last success, Giuseppe had hammered that ideal deeply into Damon's head it had become his theme song. He didn't fail at anything and he'd be damned he'd fail at marriage as well. It was time to give her a refresher course on who ran this ship.

* * *

There was porn and then there was reality. Not all parties involved got off. And she may have been young and way out of her depth when her path crossed with Damon's, Bonnie did know the difference between sex, making love, and fucking.

Taking a glance at Damon one would think he wasn't a very conscientious lover. That he only cared about his dick and easing its ache. She had been proven wrong on plenty of occasions. However, Bonnie taught herself to read the signs to know when sex wouldn't be for pleasure—not for her—but as punishment. Control.

Alaric had made one inappropriate innuendo after another that the alcohol which lined Bonnie's stomach threatened to make an appearance on his shoes. His leers were always toothy, his hands held her a little too possessively, and that bulge in his pants poked her one too many times for comfort.

The song the hired musicians played finally drew to a close and Bonnie wasted no time disengaging herself from her husband's worst enemy. "Thanks for the dance. Enjoy the rest of the party," Bonnie offered officiously and scurried away.

However, her escape was blocked by a muscular chest draped in Armani.

Please let it be the caterer, Klaus, the valet, someone anyone other than…

Slowly Bonnie craned her neck and the eyes brooding down on her made her shoulders droop.

"_Wife," _Damon held out a hand and that glint in his orbs dared her to deny him the honor of dancing.

Her skin was somehow still attached to her bones miraculously due the frostiness of her husband's words, Bonnie thought as she slapped her hand into Damon's, his fingers closing over hers and adding pressure.

He hardly ever called her Bonnie. It was always my wife, little wife, wife. It was never Bonnie, you know her name. It was never baby, sweetheart, honey. It was a bastardized and patronizing form of her marital status that came traipsing from his lips and never ever in a loving tone.

Then again if she could help it, get around it, Bonnie hardly ever used his name, either. The only time it did roll off her tongue was during sex and typically he had to eat it out of her.

Damon began leading them in a waltz that wasn't really a traditional waltz. "Bad girl. You were kissing the wrong man's ass tonight. What was so hard about my instructions that you couldn't seem to get? Dress too tight? Your shoes cut off the circulation of blood flow to your brain?"

Bonnie swallowed the flicker of rage that ignited. It wouldn't do to slap Damon upside the head and scare all these nice people with a domestic dispute.

Reaching in her arsenal for more silence, Bonnie refused to play along.

A muscle in Damon's jaw ticked. She was doing that shit again. Ignoring him. Making him feel invisible even with him standing right in front of her. The queen of silent card.

Damon jerked her closer finally being graced with his wife's attention. He smirked at her wrinkled brow, flared nostrils, and the frown turning the corners of her mouth into a snarl.

"I _asked_ you a question."

"What do you want from me?" Bonnie had lost count of the number of times she's asked him that. "I don't know what you want me to do. Suck his dick, strip for him, let him finger me? What? What would be acceptable and approving in your…"

She didn't get to finish. It was kind of fascinating how quickly his cheeks turned rosy and a blizzard formed in his irises. Bonnie was being propelled through the crowd as Damon bulldozed his way through his constituents. His hand was clamped mercilessly around her upper arm sure to leave bruises, and Bonnie had to jog a little to keep pace with him or he would have been dragging her, which is probably what he wanted to do. Drag her by the hair caveman style.

A few people ceased in their conversations to gawk and gossip. Bonnie didn't really care what was said about her. They could assume what they wanted and they'd still get the story wrong.

The married couple didn't head upstairs. Instead they traveled through the labyrinth of the main level until they reached Damon's private study. He swung Bonnie in front of him and pushed her inside and slammed the sliding oak doors closed after his entry and flicked the lock.

It was unbearably warm inside because a useless fire was roaring in the hearth. Sparks flew up the chimney when a log cracked and those same sparks zapped Bonnie.

Damon just stared at her roaming his eyes from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. Stripping her layer for layer until the little girl inside of her was revealed, shivering and balled into the fetal position. Bonnie crossed her arms over her chest as a poor form of protection and in seconds Damon was on her, pulling her neck to the side, wrenching down the shoulder of her dress as his lips laid siege to her skin.

His fingernail accidentally sliced her and the sting made Bonnie wince. She wedged her hands between them and pushed against the wall of his chest to get Damon the hell off of her. She hated when he touched her like this. When he did this. When he substituted sex for conversation.

Bonnie didn't grow up with the assumption it was difficult to talk to her. But Damon found that simple task daunting. He didn't talk to her. He talked _at _her and she complied because…

Because without him keeping his mouth shut and cleaning up her brother's mess she might be in jail for obstruction of justice right this second.

Her efforts were futile as the arm that held her around the waist—tightened.

"Sto…" Bonnie's protest was cut short when Damon licked a trail from her clavicle, up her neck, over her chin prior to slanting his mouth over hers. He stuffed it with his tongue for good measure.

Damon knew the right thing to do was to stop and have a civilized, adult conversation with his wife. To remind her that the proper etiquette in discussing matters of business meant you don't allude to another man touching you, nor placing your mouth on another man's dick, nor allowing his fingers access to any of your portals.

Bonnie's groans of discomfort turned into whimpers. Damon might have been a lot of things most of which pissed her off, but he was very good at kissing. And his skills shouldn't excuse his behavior or cloud her own judgment, but again she knew his touch usually scrambled her brain cells. How she could desire someone she despised amazed and frightened her, and Bonnie didn't know how to stop or how to seek help for her problem.

Sex was the only time she felt she had all of Damon. He thought of nothing else when they were physical. He didn't have an agenda—usually, but tonight was different.

Their tongues battled it out, one rolling over the other. Push him away, her brain said. Her loins had a different alternative they wanted to try out, though.

When their mouths finally separated with an audible _pop! _Mostly because they needed a breath, Bonnie once again tried to push her husband away, but he only propelled her over to his imposing desk, reached under her knees and lifted her onto its flat surface, and laid her down flat.

"Please…" Bonnie murmured softly as the rest of her words died on her tongue.

Her hips lifted automatically the moment Damon reached under her dress and pulled her panties down by the waistband. He loomed over her, bottom lip wet with her saliva, plump and red causing Bonnie to bite down on her own.

They didn't break eye contact while Damon fashioned the skirt of her dress into a belt around her waist.

A light film of sweat already broke out on the surface of both of their skin. The fire not helping to cool their horses and remember they had guests and they were the hosts, and being terrible ones at that.

Fingers ghosted up her thighs and began to converge on the apex of her center. His thumb sliced cleaned down her slit, traveled upward and fondled that hive of nerves.

Bonnie closed her eyes and turned her head away, but Damon would have none of that. He grabbed her by the chin.

"Look at me," he demanded.

"No."

"_Look at me!"_

Green eyes popped open anyways. "NO!" Bonnie dug her nails into his palm which made Damon grunt.

He wrenched her to a sitting position and their lips crashed into one another hungrily and brutally. This primitive dance had zero chill and neither one of them seemed to care they were inflicting pain on the other because the pain was temporary in their minds.

Bonnie's head thudded against the desk when Damon laid her out again, he hiked her right leg up to his hip, managed to unbuckle and unzip his pants in one fell swoop, pulled out his erection, and entered her just as quickly, going as deep as he could until this throbbing cockhead rammed into her cervix. It seemed.

The breath had been snatched from Bonnie's lungs as she arched her back. Her nails gouged Damon's ribs, and a tiny drop of blood escaped but neither hardly noticed.

Heat filled her womb, drenched her from the inside and leaked out coating Damon's shaft which made it easier for him to thrust. In and out.

He thought he had it bad before but that was nothing compared to this. Damon didn't want to claim he was obsessed with Bonnie. Most thinkers usually were obsessive types. But he couldn't explicitly say he loved her either. Hell he hardly knew her to say he even liked her. But there was something there between them, an intense itch that refused to be placated.

And those questions she threw at him in terms of how he wanted her to convince Klaus to be a good boy and play along…Damon didn't just see red. He felt that shit. She belonged to him. Bonnie was his wife and he'd be damned if anyone else touched her. He didn't mind other men staring at her, complimenting her but that was the line in the sand. Nothing else was permissible. However, Damon knew at any moment Bonnie might grow a backbone and tell him to fuck himself. She was done.

He always felt a sense of panic when leaving on a business trip that he might return to an empty house. To his relief, Bonnie was always where he left her and instead of telling her he was sorta kind of glad she didn't runaway, he mocked her with sarcasm, and pointed out the tasks he left for her to do sighting she got them wrong.

Was it love? No. Was it obsession? Possibly. Did he want her to leave him? Absolutely nada. Did he need to change? Only if she changed first.

During his reverie, his hips slapped into hers at a relentless pace. Damon cupped Bonnie by the back of the neck and lifted her slightly off the desk as he pounded into her, rut for rut. Her legs squeezed him.

If her vagina survived this, Bonnie wondered, she would soak in the tub for a week straight. She counted the grooves in the paneled ceiling, the books on the shelves, the number of times she heard the logs in the fireplace crack. Mentally she checked out even if what was happening to her body felt beyond amazing, indescribable.

Damon's head was buried in the crook of her shoulder and she knew he was about to come because he started stuttering.

With one more grunt and thrust he stiffened and shot his load into her. His harsh breath tickled her skin and gently Bonnie was lowered back to the desk.

Slipping out of his wife, Damon stumbled since his pants and underwear were wrapped around his ankles. He knew Bonnie didn't get off and right now he totally didn't care. He placed two fingers to his mouth and pressed them against her fluttering channel. Her body twitched in response.

Bonnie blindly pulled down her dress and closed her legs.

"Get cleaned up," Damon panted. "We still have guests."

A dry laugh sounded. "You want to know the difference between me and your Maserati, Damon?" Bonnie didn't wait for him to respond. "I sleep in the bed."

Damon flushed and took a step closer to his wife but stopped. He shook his head, pulled up his pants, and righted his attire the best he could.

Bonnie didn't move until she knew she was absolutely alone. There was little worse than being with someone and still feeling lonely.

Chapter end.

**A/N: Yeah, I know things look kind of messed up between Bamon. But we know part of the reason why they're together. Damon is holding something over her head. I do plan to write a couple of flashbacks to see how things have gotten to this point. The next chapter may begin with one, but don't hold me to that. I hoped you enjoyed this. Leave any thoughts you may have. Take care and thanks so much for reading! This fandom is the best!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **You guys keep me encouraged to keep pumping out these chapters in a semi-timely fashion. Thank you oh so much for the reviews, the addition to your lists! This chapter does feature a flashback told mostly from Damon's POV.

**Pairings: **Bonne/Damon (main), Bonnie/Klaus (friendship), and others when needed.

**Rating: **M with MA material trickled throughout.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing but the plot and all original characters. Other characters belong to LJ Smith/CW Network. Copyright infringement is not intended.

* * *

What was that saying? That nothing grows in a heavily trodden path? Self-made paths weren't all that different from millionaires, Bonnie thought. They made their own way, made their own short cuts through a system designed to make sure everyone else failed or only got ahead by strict terms and conditions. What took some decades to achieve they could do in months because nepotism, elbow rubbing, and violent provocation garnered more clout than standard ass kissing.

This wasn't her world and Bonnie wanted no part in it but for the moment she was stuck.

She examined the three-inch hairline laceration above her clavicle compliments of Damon's fingernail. It was red and inflamed but it didn't look as terrible as it felt. Still, this was the first bruise other than hickies he's left on her skin.

Trying not to think about something was the equivalent as thinking about it. The strained muscles in her legs and back ached just like her thoroughly banged vagina. Bonnie opened a bottle of aspirin and tossed back two pills and chased it with a martini.

Was she a victim? Was she an enabler? Was she Switzerland? She hadn't downed enough liquor to even begin to answer those questions. What Bonnie did know without a shadow of a doubt was that her tolerance and patience was wearing thin.

The man currently doing construction on her ire strolled into their luxurious bathroom in full frontal nudity. Showboating his virility, impassive expression on a face Bonnie usually had a hard time deciding if she wanted to punch or kiss. Things would be so much easier if he was nice, but Damon wasn't nice. She never mistook his altruism for anything other than manipulation.

Tonight had proven he could shower her with affection, but at the end of the day she was nothing but another one of his prized possessions.

Damon turned on the shower and the hiss it made transported Bonnie back to his private study just hours before where she had made a similar noise when he entered her.

She threw away the Q-tip she used to apply Neosporin to her cut at the same time Damon approached, imprinting his body along hers, resting his hardening dick along her hip, and gently cupped her by the back of the neck.

Once again their eyes met in the mirror and he pressed his lips to her temple before his eyes migrated south and he saw the damage he caused.

"Did I do that?" Thankfully his voice wasn't high-pitched like Steve Urkel's.

Bonnie's head moved up and down.

"I'm sorry," he whispered and lightly grazed the skin under the abrasion. "You can get me back later."

"I already have," Bonnie hinted with a tip of her head at the crescent shaped trenches peppered along his ribs.

Damon snorted in amusement as he inspected her handiwork. "I guess you did."

Giving her ass a smack, Damon headed off to the shower. "Get in with me, little wife."

"I've already showered."

"Then get in and wash my back."

_Wash your own fucking back, _Bonnie was burning to say but then she was interrupted by her ringing cell phone.

Glancing at the screen she grimaced and let it go to voicemail. She didn't want to deal or hear Llewellyn's bullshit. Not tonight. Not ever.

Most people when they got married did so for love, or it was an arrangement between two powerful families wanting to breed more power. Their marriage came about _because_ of Llewellyn and his stupidity.

Well, Bonnie amended she couldn't rest the sole blame on Llewellyn. If it hadn't been for her Women's Studies professor imploring Bonnie to study abroad in India for a semester then she never would have crossed paths with Damon Salvatore in the first place. Llewellyn just happened to be at the right place during the wrong time.

"Bonnie?"

Hearing her name being used by her husband made her jump. She snapped her head to the right and Damon was staring right at her.

"Get. In."

"I'm going to bed," Bonnie cancelled those plans, left the bathroom, and slammed the door closed after her exit.

In the shower, Damon's head thudded against the tile. His behavior tonight made him an exceptional bastard but really it wasn't anything new. He worked wonders with his left hand so long as the right didn't know what he was doing, and honestly, the confused man had no idea what he was doing other than making his life ten times more complicated than it needed to be.

Grabbing his Calvin Klein shower gel, Damon lathered himself and began to hum.

Not often did he question why he and Bonnie perpetuated they were this happily married couple. Damon knew his reasons for marrying her. She was beautiful as fuck. The first time he laid eyes on Bonnie all he could think about was getting her by any means necessary. Did it make him a Neanderthal prick—perhaps but Bonnie's fate had been sealed the moment she stepped foot in the VIP section of that nightclub in Mumbai.

Bonnie's reason for agreeing to marry him had nothing to do with lust at first sight and had everything to do with keeping her brother out of prison. No one told Llewellyn Wilson to get coked out of his head and kill the prostitute he solicited at a casino, Damon thought benignly. Unfortunate her death was, but another man's fatal mistake had been Damon's fortune.

Owning a company was one thing, making investments was another and Damon was king at capitalizing on a ripe deal. And Bonnie had been the sweetest deal of them all.

* * *

**Mumbai, India—1½ Years Ago**

"You're a prick and an asshole," she fumed.

A saccharine smile curled pink lips, and the glint in his formidable azure eyes bespoke of flattery not offense. "Two of my greatest accomplishments besides, you know, making forty-seven million dollars last year," Damon replied flippantly.

She scoffed crudely while she vigorously searched for her clothes that had been discarded hastily only three hours ago in their haste to screw each other's brains to mush.

"Well I hope you have fun with Ben, Lincoln, Jackson, and Washington since those will be the _only_ people left who can tolerate your smug ass. You might have money, Damon but you sure as hell don't have class or much of a personality at that."

The amusement on his face vanished like a cruise liner drifting into the Bermuda Triangle. Paradise was lost, hospitality forgotten, and what stood in front of her now was the mangy entrepreneur who had no qualms about slashing the throat of his competitor in full view of the public.

Stacey Lannister could barely swallow her spit. The muscles in her body tensed like shifting tectonic plates, converging and crashing violently into one another that she became a literal statue.

"You're one to talk about _personality, _Miss Stacey. When I found you the most special thing about you was your ability to shoot golf balls out of your twat."—Stacey blushed to her roots.—"And now you think you can lecture me? _Me_?" Damon crossed the room at an inhuman pace to stand only centimeters away from Stacey who couldn't look him straight in the eye. Not anymore. "I pulled you out of the fucking gutter and I can _easily _throw your ass back in. I'm sure daddy misses his fluffer," he smirked evilly.

Stacey's nostrils flared. Her hand twitched with the almighty power to slap Damon Salvatore's head clean off his highfalutin shoulders. Belittling her for doing what a girl born in Tennessee with only an eleventh grade education could do for money was one thing. Making light of her abusive childhood was another. For that very reason alone she tolerated men but within her burned a hatred that all the water in the oceans combined wouldn't be enough to extinguish.

Straightening her spine, Stacey offered up a conciliatory smile she didn't feel and probably still came off as a sneer. She ran her fingers—although a bit shakily—through Damon's soft, raven tresses again resisting the urge to inflict as much pain by ruthlessly pulling his hair.

He was beautiful and knew it and if he weren't such a dick he'd be perfect. But the man was tainted by his own narcissism, and grandiose self-importance that Stacey convinced herself he was beyond redemption. Men like Damon seemingly flipped a switch on their humanity after reaching a certain pay grade and level of success. They stopped seeing people as people and turned them into pawns they played with at will and threw away like trash once bored. She had vowed to cut her losses before Damon could do the honors for her. Nevertheless, she invariably fell for his bullshit, and continued to allow him to wine and dine her knowing nothing would ever come of it other than a couple of screaming orgasms she wouldn't have to ask a bartender to mix.

However, Stacey knew when to pick her battles. She was in a foreign country with nary a person to call friend should Damon decide right then and there he was tired of her and sent her ass packing.

"You're right," she purred submissively. "I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for you riding in, in your black Ferrari," she trilled a laugh that was about as genuine as a handshake between President Obama and Rush Limbaugh.

Damon's laugh was dry as he pulled Stacey's fingers out of his hair, thrust her aside, and sauntered over to the overstuffed chair in his suite with his jeans barely hanging on to his narrow hips.

"I think we should call it a night. I want to be alone right now."

Nodding, Stacey began making tracks to the bedroom, but stopped when Damon cleared his throat. She refaced him.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" he pondered.

"To the bedroom."

"Maybe I didn't make myself clear but I said I wanted to be _alone," _he obscenely enunciated every syllable in the word. "That means I want this suite I used my cold hard cash to pay for all to myself."

Her jaw sky dived to her ample chest. "Where am I supposed to sleep?" her southern accent became thicker with her incredulity.

"I don't really give a shit, Stacey. Go canoodle with those two sheiks you were flirting with earlier. Here," Damon reached in his pocket for a wad of cash and pulled off fifteen crisp one hundred dollar bills. He stretched them out to her. "That should be enough to get you a coach ticket back to the States."

Doubly furious now, Stacey threw the Manolo pump in her hand directly at Damon's head who ducked just in time.

"Fuck you!" she swore, found the rest of her things and stormed out of the penthouse hotel suite.

Damon tossed the bills in the air making it rain for no one. He had already violated so many bachelor rules he had no one's ass to kick but his own. Never bring sand to the beach. Stacey Lannister, for as beautiful as she was, had been nothing more than a distraction. A costly one at that.

Men in his position were supposed to be seen with women draped all over them like couch covers, but at the end of the day when the pretentious layers were pulled back, Damon valued his solitude more than anything else. Plus, jackrabbiting between a pair of thighs could only dull the ache currently pressing up against his chest for so long.

No matter how fast you ran or what course you took, your problems were still there, chasing you and snapping at your heels. Burn them away with alcohol, blot them out with meaningless sex, and they still glared in your face twenty-four fucking seven refusing to be vanquished.

Thrumming his fingers on the arm rest of the chair, Damon's mind wondered. He didn't want to be alone. Left with his thoughts and he was liable to do something incredibly fucked up.

If he was going to be miserable he might as well head out and find some company.

Damon showered. Ditched his jeans for tailored threads with a price tag that would enrage anyone living paycheck to paycheck. He tamed his notoriously tousled locks easily transforming from entitled trust fund baby to transcontinental mogul. His blue irises were on his fire, his tongue was parched, and his dick had been a long way from being satisfied.

It was time for the debauchery to begin.

**Two hours later…**

Love could sometimes be like balancing a fattail scorpion on the back of your hand. One wrong move and it could turn against you. The idea of love intrigued you, but you feared its sting. Losing love could be as deadly as the venom contained in the stinger of a scorpion, Damon thought as he eyed the small creature perched on his hand.

His fingers were wrapped around a shot glass. The idea was to take a shot while not jostling or enticing the scorpion to sting. The crowd of spectators surrounding him watched without breathing or blinking. Their gazes volleyed between the dumb American and the scorpion putting all their money on the arthropod to be the victor.

What they failed to take an account of was the fact Damon, too was a predator. Like the scorpion. He wouldn't say he went around looking for things to kill, but he did murder whatever got in his way with his tongue, his prowess, and ambition. Nothing really survived in his path, and if it did then it came out much better than its original intent—at least that was the lie he told himself.

Scorpions didn't hunt in packs. They didn't need to and neither did Damon. He was a nomad, an orphan in a sense because he had been the only person to truly believe in himself. He had a brother, but Stefan was always gone. Such was the life of a scholar.

Damon raised the glass a little higher and the scorpion took a step. A collective gasp became a vacuum and sucked up all available oxygen. Women jostled one another; men shouldered other men for a bird's eye view of the show.

A tiny smirk curled Damon's lips when the rim of the glass butted against his mouth. He was eye-level with the venomous creature. Its beady black eyes bored into his and if Damon could have read its mind he was probably being cussed out in Hindi.

Hands began to drum the bar top and the energy of the crowd thickened as it appeared the American might actually be able to pull this off. However, anyone could balance a deadly insect on their hand. Draining a cup of liquid with said insect on your drinking hand without getting stung was the true Herculean test.

There wasn't a doctor on sight and the nearest hospital was miles away. If for whatever reason Damon was stung he'd be a dead man within minutes. The thought of his own mortality made his heart beat faster in anticipation. His adrenaline had completely taken over and he felt high.

Amber fluid crashed into his teeth and slithered down his throat one gulp at a time. The scorpion moved again, this time turning completely around mooning Damon for all intents and purposes. The crowd burst with fear and thrall that this might be it. This brave and foolish asshole might be dead in seconds.

The last drop of bourbon trickled down Damon's esophagus, and with a simple flick of his wrist, he dismounted the scorpion and slapped his empty shot glass over it, trapping the arthropod.

The roar was deafening.

Congratulations in the form of: shoulder slaps, handshakes, cheers, whistles, and a couple of kisses to his cheeks and lips from gorgeous women was Damon's reward. He accepted it humbly as only a hot-blooded, white male could do—brashly. Throwing his money around. Ordering drinks for his new friends. This had gone unnoticed by him of course, but a couple pairs of brooding eyes followed his every move.

He pushed his way through the suffocating multitude needing to take a piss. His belly full of liquor and Indian cuisine rumbled. Bile rushed up his esophagus but Damon swallowed it back down. His standoff with the scorpion had been exhilarating and for the moment he had stopped thinking about _her, _but she was always there. Haunting him. Reminding him they were over.

Damon saw snippets of her face in the women who called Mumbai home. Escaping her was like trying not to breathe in exhaust from a smoking truck driving in front of you. He was already going back on his promise not to go down a downward spiral simply because the woman he loved walked away from a good thing. This good thing of course being him. She was a stupid bitch and she'd learn one day that what she had was amazing, and would come crawling back on her hands and knees preferably and then…

He might consider taking her back after she jumped through hoops, naturally. If it had nothing to do with charity and even then he side-eyed it, Damon Salvatore gave nothing away for free.

Not his time, not his talent, and certainly not his love. And he had loved her in the only way he knew how. Frenetic, passionate, and relentlessly. Damon was well aware that he loved too hard, but also sparingly. He wasn't an easy-to-assemble toy. His instructional manual came in several languages, required an armada of tools, and balls made of steel.

As he made it to the bathroom and planted himself in front of a urinal, Damon placed his balled fist on the tiled wall to help keep his balance while the other wrapped around his meat. His mind should have been on business—work. He hated his job and his life sometimes but the power he wielded was too addicting to give up. Fuck no to that. Being a genetic clone of his parents melded DNA might have placed him in the CEO chair, but it was his diligence that kept him there.

So to allow a solitary female bring him down in the dumps like this was unacceptable to him.

Fucking unacceptable.

He was bigger than this. Bigger than _her. _Tatia Rhodes the veritable love of his ill-gotten life. And he might be hurting now but Damon knew it wouldn't be forever. This pain that lingered and lynched his heart every single time he took a step would dissipate with time. He'd find someone else. There was plenty to choose from. His bed wouldn't stay cold. Stacey Lannister might have been a semi-useful distraction, but at the end the day she was leaps and bounds away from what he wanted.

Love could sometimes make you feel like you were fighting for your life, the right to exist, and it could also feel like the taste of victory when getting the upper hand on the rivalry. Maybe he was too drunk to be this philosophical, but in any case the pain of losing love was bleeding out of Damon as he used the restroom. He flushed and tucked his little monster back into his slacks.

Leaving the restroom, he meandered through the heavily congested club and decided not to head to the over populated bar and made his destination to the roped off VIP section. He flashed his credentials: a stack full of bills and was allowed admittance.

A bevy of women were there drinking Veuve Clicquot, Cristal, Dom, all the top shelf bottles of champagne. Some were attired in eye-catching saris, others wore Italian and French designers, and there were a few who took a chance and wore something conceptualized by an American. In all it was nothing Damon hadn't seen before. He made himself quite at home. Speaking the lingo, seducing the estrogen powered masses with a quick turn of phrase here, a well-placed kiss on the cheek there, and soon women were perched under each arm and attached to his legs.

The night dragged on and Damon got progressively drunker. After a while everything he consumed tasted the same.

It might have been nearing three in the morning for all he knew, but Damon decided he needed to take a breather and stretch his legs. The cloying odor of perfume and scented oil was making him congested so he stood from the velvet couch amid playful whines and pouty lips.

He promised his harem he would return, took two steps away to overlook the rest of the club when he caught something out of his peripheral.

She wore red and she wore it well. Her long sleeve midrift and high-waist skirt could be classified as conservative if it weren't for the sheer material that hinted at her butterscotch skin below. Thick ripples of ebony hair contoured to a heart shaped face that made Damon think about both salvation and damnation. She was a heavenly being dressed in devil red and if that didn't inspire an erection when he caught a glimpse of her ass when she turned sideways that certainly did it.

Damon vaguely recognized the man she was talking to. He couldn't be absolutely sure, but he was pretty sure the guy might be one of his employees assisting with outsourcing his telecommunications company.

And it was at that specific time the man looked right at Damon and recognition flashed on his face, and the stranger hastily started making his way toward Damon.

"Mr. Salvatore?" the man said excitedly. "Ohmygod I can't believe it's you!"

"Do I know you?"

"Yeah, kind of sort of. I'm one of the coordinators working on the Delphi project. My name's Llewellyn. Llewellyn Wilson."

"Oh, right," Damon had _no_ idea who he was.

The two men shook hands but Damon's attention span soon drifted back over to the woman in red who was sharing a glass of champagne with a strawberry blonde.

The man who essentially barreled his way over to Damon had practically been forgotten until he started talking again.

"That's my sister," Llewellyn volunteered. "The two of us being in India together wasn't even planned, but she just happens to be studying abroad while I'm working on this merger. Funny how things work out."

Funny indeed. "Bring her over here," Damon ordered. "I want to meet her."

"O-okay."

Damon picked up on the man's hesitation. He offered him a smile. "We can talk business later."

Llewellyn nodded like a good minion. "I'll be right back."

His employee scuttled away, exchanged some words and the blonde and brunette shifted their gaze to Damon. The blonde looked receptive to the idea of meeting him. One of her eyebrows rose and already he could read the divide and conquer glint in her eyes. However, her shorter companion the one draped in red and gold jewelry appeared more reserved, tentative.

Dutifully they followed behind Llewellyn who bore no physical resemblance to his sister. He was taller, lankier with almond skin, sandy brown hair, and dark eyes. Not real conventionally handsome, but if he wore the right suit he would be able to attract his fair share of admiration from the ladies.

Once they stood in front of Damon forming an arc around him, he maintained eye contact with the blonde; however, he was scoping the one in red from head to toe out the corner of his eye.

"Jenna Sommers," the strawberry blonde introduced herself extending a hand. "It's nice to meet you."

Damon took her proffered limb and kissed her knuckles. "The pleasure is all mines, Jenna."

He snorted as quietly as possible when a tell-tale blush began tinting Jenna's cheeks. She was beautiful in a wholesome way. Nothing dangerous about her. She was suburban soccer mom hot, Damon ruled before swinging his unremitting leer in the brunette's direction.

Up close she was a thousand times more beautiful that it was almost physically painful to look at her. Damon sucked in a ragged breath and accepted the woman's hand in his immediately noticing how small it was by comparison. It would take next to nothing to fracture her bones, but harming her in any way would be a crime punishable by death.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Damon Salvatore," he introduced himself and was already raising her hand to his tingling lips.

"Bonnie Bennett," she shouted in order to be heard over the roar of music and the revelers.

When his mouth made contact with her flesh there hadn't been any outward sign from Bonnie that she was…flustered by him. That made Damon's left eye shrink in diameter. In fact, the more he studied her, the more annoyed she looked. Maybe the club scene wasn't her thing and she was out of her element. Regardless of that she should have been bouncing with joy she was shaking hands with one of the richest men on earth who also happened to be terribly good looking.

"Can I get you ladies something to drink? It's on me," Damon didn't release Bonnie's hand although he felt her trying to tug it free.

"I would love a glass of champagne…if there's any left," Jenna instantly accepted the offer.

"None for me. I've reached my limit. Llewellyn where's the bathroom?" Bonnie said.

"It should be downstairs somewhere. I don't know," her brother answered a bit tersely.

"I can show you where it is," Damon offered.

"No, that's okay. I'm sure I'll find it. Excuse me," she pulled her hand free, turned, and got missing.

Jenna walked a few paces after Bonnie, caught her by the arm, and the two exchanged words before Jenna retook her place in front of Damon. She offered up another Colgate smile that did nothing for his libido.

Deciding to go ahead and trade pleasantries with the two grinning individuals who apparently had nothing better to do than gawk at him, Damon intercepted a waitress and barked at her to bring up more bottles of champagne and clean glasses. When enough time passed and Jenna and—what was the guy's name again?—when they were distracted with the opulence being showcased on the wrists and necks of those decorating the VIP section, Damon made his way downstairs to the bathroom.

He slowly opened the door and Bonnie was at the sink washing her hands concentrating fully on her task. It didn't seem to matter which angle someone drank her form from she was a knockout either way.

Without the nude heels on Damon doubted very much she came much higher than his chin. His preference had been women with long limbs and even longer hair. Race wasn't really an issue with him, nor social class, but this elfin female standing unawares before him made the palms of his hands itch. He didn't know a damn thing about her only that she wasn't impressed by him yet that made him want her all the more. When Damon wanted something with persistence it gave into him. He knew without needing to ask that Bonnie Bennett would take a lot of elbow grease to win her over.

She stifled a scream when she caught him lurking in the mirror. Bonnie whirled around to face him, pea green eyes stretched wide as far as they could go.

"_WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE? Get. Out!"_

Damon didn't answer right away. He tugged down his zipper and heard Bonnie gasp. He smiled and began walking toward a stall. "Calm down. This is a unisex bathroom."

Bonnie blinked. "A unisex bathroom?" she echoed.

Damon pointed over his shoulder to indicate the placard over the door that sure enough had a little man and woman drawn on it. It would have been easily mistaken for segregated bathrooms, but nope. This bathroom was intended for the sexes to share.

The two of them stared at one another. Bonnie ended their showdown, hastily reached for her purse, and scurried to the exit.

"Bonnie?"

She paused at the door but didn't turn around to face him.

"I'm glad I met you tonight."

* * *

That had been the beginning. The beginning of a turbulent courtship that all came together due to murder. What Damon learned that night was that his paradigm with his brother Stefan wasn't all that dissimilar of the one Bonnie shared with Llewellyn. The younger siblings were best friends with the word restraint while the elders lived as if life were a Kawasaki sports bike.

Llewellyn liked his drink and liked it often. So did Damon. But where Damon became a crass and crude drunk, Llewellyn turned violent. Damon learned that three weeks later while doing his part in concealing evidence, cleaning up a crime. He had never seen so much human blood in his life.

"_It was an accident," Llewellyn cried making his already blood-shot eyes redder. "I didn't mean for things to go this far."_

"_Yeah, well she's dead! We need to call the police," Bonnie stood as far away from the dead body as she could get, her eyes trained on everything but the deceased._

"_What no! I can't go to prison in some third world country!" Llewellyn hollered._

_India was far from being a third world country, Damon started to protest but took the reins of the situation. "Shut the hell up! Both of you. This is what's going to happen…"_

Damon was as much an accessory as Bonnie but that wasn't really the point. It was his connections Llewellyn needed to stay one step ahead of the law that made the brother/sister duo indebted to him.

"_Name your price?" Llewellyn had asked the day after the prostitute's body had been disposed of, chugging on a cigarette, twitching like a crack fiend. _

"_I want Bonnie," three simple words that changed both of their lives irrevocably. _

Did she know her brother sold her out for his own freedom? That was more than evident.

Stepping out of the shower, Damon toweled himself dry. You call in some favors of a favor, give a woman a life she never dreamed of, and it still wasn't good enough. Damon was at his wit's end.

After brushing his teeth he strolled into his bedroom stark naked and spied his wife burrowed under the duvet. Her labored breathing made him snort, but he climbed into bed, slid closer to her, and dropped a kiss to her naked shoulder.

She didn't stir. He hadn't expected her to either.

One of his many stipulations when they got hitched was Bonnie had to wear as little as possible to bed. On most nights she wore a bra and panties, or a sheer cami that left little to the imagination. She refused to sleep nude though much to his chagrin.

Damon rolled back to his side of the bed and stared up at the ceiling waiting for unconsciousness to come.

While he was slowly drifting off to the place where dreams were made, Bonnie had just stepped foot in a recurring nightmare that had the same twisted ending. A young woman dead, her brother covered in blood, and a multi-millionaire rubbing his hands together and leering happily.

The comedy slash tragedy that was her life never went into intermission.

Chapter end.

**A/N: I hope I did okay with revealing the exact nature of Bamon's marriage. I will tell the events that happened in Mumbai, I promise. It's a vital reason why Bonnie is still in her marriage although she's clearly not happy. Nevertheless, thank you so much for reading and don't be shy in letting me know what you think. No pressure, though.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Hi! As always thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed, added to your list of faves, or alerted! I'm so glad you guys are enjoying this story! This chapter doesn't feature a flashback, but it does get intriguing at the end and that's all I'll say.

**Rating: *This chapter features MA material. Discretion advised***

**Pairings: **Bonnie/Damon (main), Bonnie/Klaus (friendship), and others when needed.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing but the plot and any original characters I create. Everyone else belongs to LJ Smith/The CW. Copyright infringement is not intended.

* * *

He wasn't sweet as blood red jam and his tongue was much more fatal than a car crash on Mulholland Drive. There were reads, shade, and then a total decimation of a person's character that couldn't be counted as slander because what the initiator was tongue slinging was the absolute truth. What Damon Salvatore was doing right at the very moment while breaking his fast with his wife was a knockout combination of all three.

"This isn't the first time your lackluster performance has cost this company money. The HR department is becoming dumb as hell to hire as a director an incompetent bastard who can barely spell his last name let alone pronounce it. Did you fabricate your resume? Copy and paste it off a template? You had to to even _think _I would approve something like that. It's sad that a child who rides the short yellow bus has more intelligence than a man who graduated in the top three percent of his class from Yale, and I'm beginning to think that was a lie too." Pause. "I don't want to hear that shit, Kissinger."

Bonnie curled her finger around the ceramic handle of the tea cup and brought it to her lips. Pursing them slightly she blew the steam away before taking a sip. Earl Grey. Lemon and chamomile blend supposedly to sooth stress away. Bonnie's wrist twitched with the decidedly wicked tick to throw the contents in her husband's face. Either that or a bucket of ice water chilled at fifty-two degrees may do the trick in reminding him people were not his slaves.

Bonnie tried her best to drown out the sound of his voice, but that was hard to do considering they were the only two people in the informal dining room, separated by ten feet of mahogany lacquer.

She sat at one end of the imposing table while Damon occupied the other, tie tucked into his shirt, Bluetooth lodged in his ear, legs crossed, sheets of important documents crumpled in his fist.

With some fascination Bonnie observed his cheeks getting pinker, more inflamed with each conversation streaming through his business line. His eyes, though, went from mellow to buggery within seconds, and already his perfectly coifed hair had been finger combed, tugged, and mussed to unkempt proportions.

"If it's something I haven't seen before," Damon continued and flicked his eyes briefly at his wife, "I'll throw a dollar at it. Until then consider yourself on administrative leave _without _pay until further notice. You think I care you have a mortgage? Or that you need to pay your daughter's tuition? Maybe you should have used that as motivation not to fuck up so royally. Let this be a lesson."

Damon disconnected the call.

After hearing that Bonnie was certain the glaciers in Antarctica were warmer than her husband. Cutting a man off from his livelihood was right up there with castration only in this case it was the financial kind. Perhaps this should have been the point she donned her official robes and played devil's advocate for the latest victim in Damon's quest to rule the world. However, she knew better than to open her mouth and speak about things she knew—at least in his opinion—nothing about.

His line rang once more to which he let out an aggravation breath. "If it's not good news I suggest you hang the fuck up."

The lovely hum of the dial tone tickled his eardrum.

Bonnie feigned interest as she turned the pages in the newspaper she had been scanning. "Everything all right?"

"Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about," his words were spoken with the deluxe mix of mind your business and don't talk to me right now.

Bonnie snorted and said," Asshole."

For the last month things between she and Damon had been borderline mundane. He went to work. She did meaningless things to occupy her time. They had dinner at pricey restaurants with dishes best served to the wildlife. Or went to an event to jog everyone's memory they were still a compatible and functioning unit despite what they may have witnessed at the last soiree the overly attractive couple hosted.

Surprisingly, until last night, Damon hadn't demanded sex from her in that non-communicative way of his by invading her space and touching her with blunt fingers.

Squirming in her chair, Bonnie tempered her burning blood with another sip of tea. She hadn't expected to be awakened at two in the morning with Damon looming over her.

"_Come swim with me," _he whispered in the pitch darkness of their master suite and pulled the duvet off her body.

Bonnie had rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "What?"

Her husband answered by stroking her through her panties so she'd get the message. Bonnie was fully awake then. She may have had her pride and wanted to tell him no chance in hell, but she had needs too and they were picketing, rioting, and lobbing Molotov cocktails through storefront windows.

She watched blearily as Damon padded across the room in only his boxer briefs and waited for her to follow him once he reached the door.

She climbed out of bed grumbling quietly once her manicured toes sunk into the plush carpeting.

Damon reached for her hand and escorted her through darkened corridors and archways that always made Bonnie feel like a child because of their staggering and intimidating height.

Within minutes they reached their private rooftop pool. Blue spindles of light like whiffs of smoke danced along the glass ceiling and walls. It was tranquil; Bonnie would admit however she had been getting her tranquility through sleep which had been interrupted.

"What are we doing up here?" she folded her arms over her abdomen unable to hide her exposed, goose pimpled flesh.

Damon didn't respond orally, but merely pulled his underwear off and proudly stood naked before the woman he called wife. "I want you. Plain and simple and the bed won't do. Not tonight."

And there she was once again reduced to feeling like a warm body Damon wanted to deposit his cock in every once and a while.

Would it kill him to put some effort into seducing her? Into romancing her? The shrew in Bonnie rose to the surface and with it she jutted her chin up to which Damon knew what that signified and didn't try to mask his annoyance.

"Would you like to hear my prices before we start?" she sassed.

Within two strides he stood toe-to-toe with Bonnie glaring at her with borderline hatred that warred with lust and unrestrained sexual tension.

"You are my wife," he bit out through gritted teeth. "You're not a whore so stop trying to make yourself into one. Ask me that stupid question again and I'll have no problems making you _work_ for every buck."

Her nostrils flared.

Damon's hard features softened. "Do you I make you feel like a whore?"

His tone was curious, Bonnie ascertained and she figured it wouldn't do her any good or justice to sugarcoat her reply. Brutal honesty was always best. "Yes the hell you do."

Damon's brow furrowed. "That's not how I see you."

"But it's how you treat me. You snap at me."

"I can say the exact same thing about you," he rebutted.

"You work for a living and if I need something I have to ask you for money and that can come with a whole lot of strings attached. Usually of the sexual kind."

"Married couples have sex so I'm not seeing the problem. And you don't need to ask me for money, wife. I've told you this. What's mine is yours."

Bonnie shook her head. Damon could omit parts of the truth if he wanted to, but their arrangement wasn't that simple. What was his was his and what was hers was his, too.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," she gave up.

"No, it's not," he deadpanned in agreement.

"You have your version of facts and I have mine."

"A house divided can't stand as one, little wife. So I guess we're agreeing to disagree."

Bonnie stared up and into those winter colored irises. So beguiling they were damn near hypnotic. "That's all we ever do."

"Why change it when we work just fine," he smiled mockingly.

Bonnie had no comment because the one she was dying to make would napalm the moment.

"You're my wife," he restated almost tenderly. Or maybe in lieu of an "I love you". They had been married for a year and some change and had yet to say those words. The emotion, the feeling had to be there or otherwise they would be lying.

"And you're my husband but that's only a title. Don't you ever…don't you ever question what we're getting out of this?"

"Maybe you should stop asking questions and carry out the action. You won't get what you want if you sit in a corner and pout. Go after what you want."

"Just like you did?"

He nodded. "Just like I did."

Damon ran the back of his knuckles down her cheek and traced the rim of her lip with the pad of his thumb. Soft like a feather. Enough to pummel her into mush with sensation. A deep heat ignited in her womb and fanned outward like ripples in a tide. Damon dipped his head while Bonnie rose on her toes to meet him in the middle, but then he stopped, smirked, and slanted his mouth over hers.

Moments like this she wanted to stretch forever when there wasn't a malicious undertone to the way he touched her. Many things a person could conceal but something's were more stubborn to bury and leaked out in unforeseen ways. He cared but maybe he didn't want to.

It only took seconds for the kiss to get out of hand like a match being pitched in a gasoline drenched wood pile. Damon's hands made a go for her bra and instead of unclasping it like any normal individual might do, he ripped the thing apart.

The seam cut into Bonnie's skin and she cried out a little; however, the pain was licked into submission the second Damon palmed and kneaded her ass after removing her panties.

He was hard steel pressing deep into her feminine curves, and the scent of his skin invaded her airways and coated her tongue. It made her so dizzy that the world actually went on a tailspin.

Walking backwards, Damon with his arms secure around his wife, the horny couple fell into the pool. Not once had their lips separated.

When the demand for breath became high they broke the surface and Damon transferred his mouth to Bonnie's chest and lashed her nipple with his tongue before nursing deeply. He loved sucking, playing, touching, and even motor boating her tits. Well…that one time she allowed him to do the latter he had thoroughly enjoyed it. Switching his attention to her neglected breast he went to town devouring her creamy flesh until she was a whimpering mess.

With some clever maneuvering Damon slipped a hand between their wet bodies, stroked Bonnie's middle before manually guiding himself into her.

A deep groan of satisfaction sang through his tit stuffed mouth. But then that groan turned into a hiss the second Bonnie sunk her fingers into his midnight hair, and tugged the strands to the point he was sure his scalp was about to separate from his skull.

The disturbing part was he didn't mind. Damon was a masochist at heart; he knew this and even perpetuated the rumor he liked it hard and he definitely liked it rough. The rougher the better and the closer to the holy trinity he felt.

The both of them slipped underwater where Damon proceeded to slam into his wife causing bubbles to float from her mouth and nostrils. Bonnie held on to him for dear life as she arched her back, and then they were bursting through the surface once more. Pushing sodden hair away from their flushed faces.

Her legs were cinched around his waist and Damon walked to the shallow end of the pool, climbed the steps holding on to Bonnie. They stumbled into the nearest wall and were a hazard in the making. Tight, hard bodies dripping water trying to balance themselves up against aqua ceramic tile...someone was in danger of breaking something.

Even in the savage way he loved her there was a sacredness attached to it. Damon was the only one to do this to her and he would be the only one. It swelled his head, insides, and balls to think before him there had been none.

The race left her breathless and Bonnie hadn't mentally floated off to deep space nine. She was there in the moment, rocking her hips in tandem ready to milk and pasteurize Damon like a cow. Their lips clashed like stripes and polka dots and with one final thrust, Bonnie catapulted to another galaxy.

Why did he have to be so good at this? she internally groaned, but was thankful he was because otherwise her situation might be even more miserable than at present.

He had her again in the shower that was offset of the pool where their attempt at washing the chlorine from their bodies turned into Damon hitting it from the back.

Onward their party continued to the bedroom where they went from the window to the wall, and ended up on the bed, panting, kissing, licking, squeezing as if he didn't have to be up in a couple of hours to get ready for work.

By the time they were finished dawn was only forty-five minutes away. Damon lay with his head on Bonnie's stomach as she absently stroked his hair and yawned. She was positive her eyes were bloodshot, hair a tangled mess, and it would be something if she didn't walk as if she suddenly developed rickets. Everything within her felt like it was out of alignment however she felt strangely centered. Clear-headed.

"You need to get some sleep," she told her husband.

"I'll be all right."

"What do you want the chef to make for breakfast?"

Damon lifted his head then and pierced her with a sinister smile. "I'll think of something."

Bonnie finished her tea at the conclusion of her inner musings. When she finally looked at the other end of the table, Damon was wiping the crumbs from his mouth and shooing away the maid who hastily got out of his way and approached her.

She offered the older woman a smile and nodded her head that she could take her empty dishes away.

Bonnie's cell phone ringed and she frowned. Llewellyn was calling her _again, _and just like the other twenty-seven times he's called she still had nothing nice to say to him.

Damon recognized the ringtone. "What does your brother want? I thought I made it perfectly clear for him not to contact you."

"Apparently he didn't listen."

"Not listening to me seems to run in the family," Damon jabbed and slid the chair away from the table and stood to his full height.

Bonnie narrowed her eyes and promptly returned to reading the paper. He wasn't going to goad her into a fight.

"Find out what he wants," Damon began fixing his shirt, smoothed out his tie, and reached for his suit blazer.

"You know what he wants."

"Yeah, unfortunately I do," Damon was ready to take his leave but paused at Bonnie's chair and stared her down. "If he calls again tell him I said a deal's a deal."

This time when she said asshole, Bonnie made sure he heard her which only made Damon's smile broaden. The creases and lines around his eyes deepened and added a flawed kind of character to his otherwise unfathomably handsome face.

"Walk me to the door, wife."

Hesitating for only a second Bonnie got to her feet and walked like a demure, obedient servant behind her husband. Once in the atrium, Damon collected his keys, monogrammed attaché, and his designer shades. He faced Bonnie and kissed her cheek and then her lips, nipping her playfully.

"Have a good day at work, honey," Bonnie instructed facetiously.

Damon threw open the door temporarily blinding them both with ultraviolet light. "I'm sure you pray for my safe drive into work like Sansa prayed for Joffrey in battle," he winked. "I'll probably be home late so don't wait up."

That couldn't have been a more accurate description, Bonnie thought and waved. She wavered a bit when she noticed that Damon wouldn't be driving his Maserati today but…his fully restored '67 Chevy Camaro.

She closed the door once he was behind the wheel and tore out of their cobblestone driveway.

Had he taken to heart those words she spoke after he fucked her in his office, and she claimed there wasn't much difference between her and his precious car? He took them for rides, paraded them around for show, but at the heart of it didn't really care if something were to happen to them because he could afford to upgrade to something else.

That Camaro had been a gift from Damon's only friend before he died. Bonnie couldn't think of his name only that it began with the letter E. But she remembered Damon saying when he gave her a tour of her new dwellings that that guy had been a second brother to him. The Caramo was the only car Bonnie had ever seen Damon do the wash and detailing himself. He trusted none of his hired hands to touch it, let alone breathe in its direction.

She was probably making something out of nothing, but Bonnie knew Damon never did anything without some calculation, without trying to send a message.

If Damon could improve on his delivery…if he could act like he was the least bit interested in her existence beyond how she could get him off and award him accolades of praise and envy from his legion of haters, Bonnie might actually take their relationship more seriously. Then again, if she were to unhinge her jaw, use her words, and say such…things might change for the better. Improve.

Bonnie heard in a movie once that you accept the love you think you deserve. With her silence and refusal to come forward she was aiding and abating a murderer all because he was blood, and because of that was sequestered in a marriage with a man she barely knew.

Yet she did know Damon. In ways that were small and microscopic but put together would make a very intriguing case study on alpha males and their posturing.

Damon was a victim of his own self-inflicted issues. Nothing more and nothing less. Classic, modern, ovary incinerating good looks gave him a pass where others would be serving hard time if they committed the acts he's gotten away with. He wanted her for reasons she didn't understand, and that want led down craggy, bone breaking roads.

But if she were to be honest with herself, truly honest she would say something underneath his physically pleasing and stimulating aesthetics called to her. Beckoned her to come just a little closer. Maybe she was just suffering from a young adult case of wanting to turn the bad boy good since she was a good girl. Whatever the reason, she was still here; still living with him, still very much wanting to have sex with Damon.

Her ringing cell interrupted her flow of thought. Bonnie sprinted back to the dining room and once again a frown furrowed her brow. She didn't recognize the number.

"Hello?" she answered despite her misgivings.

"Am I speaking with the most dangerously beautiful woman on the western seaboard?"

The words threw her off but the accent gave her the answer of who she was talking to. "I'm not sure about that. I am a woman but I don't know about the dangerously beautiful part."

"Never sell yourself short, love. You could tempt a monk out of celibacy."

Unconsciously her lips curled at the corners and the tension from moments ago ebbed. Bonnie could literally see herself letting her hair down, shucking away the hat with the words "indentured wife" embroidered on the bill. She hadn't really thought about this person since she met him. Nevertheless, hearing his voice did something inexplicable. It made her feel buoyant. But then that buoyant feeling sank. How did he get her number? It wasn't listed. But then, Bonnie reminded herself, little was crept secret when a powerful person was involved.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Mikaelson?"

"Need I reprimand you again? Klaus, always call me Klaus. And what you can do for me may take a while but I'll give you the short of it. If you're available this afternoon I'd love to have lunch with you."

"Why?" Bonnie blurted and nibbled on her lip.

"Why not? Other than a few business associates, including your dreadful husband, you Madame Bonnie," and he said that in French that would make any woman's toes curl, "are the only other person I know in this state. I'm tired of their company and you…intrigue me."

"We were barely introduced, Klaus."

"Yes, that's true. If you have a prior engagement…I understand."

"I do and even if I didn't it wouldn't be…proper," Bonnie shifted her weight on her feet. "You're my husband's business associate. What would the two of us breaking bread look like?"

"It wouldn't look like anything if done in broad daylight with lots of witnesses around, and we appeared to be discussing business. If it would make you more comfortable I can obtain permission from your husband."

"NO!" Bonnie spat hastily. "No," she reiterated quietly. "Damon is…very busy."

Klaus chuckled darkly then. "Isn't he always? He should take care. He wouldn't want to find himself losing something very valuable. I've watched it happen too many times to men _and _women who grew careless and took their blessings for granted. I won't impose on you. Just know it's an open invitation whenever you're ready to cash in. Save my number. I hope to hear from you soon. Enjoy the rest of your day, love."

Klaus hung up.

The randomness of his call almost intrigued Bonnie enough to call him back and take him up on his offer. As big as Los Angeles was, depending on which circle a person ran in it shrunk the size of the city to where everyone literally almost knew everyone else. Bonnie couldn't take the chance of one of Damon's lackeys spotting her with Klaus and reporting his findings to Damon who would then accuse her of cheating. It happened once before when one of her college friends had a layover on his way to Hawaii and Bonnie met him for drinks.

Their reunion lasting no more than an hour and a half had been completely innocent, but by the time Damon walked through the door, he threw the book at her and almost threw her out of the house.

No, it would be in her best interest to spare herself that treatment especially while they were on this fragile impasse.

Parading to the grand staircase to get dressed for the day, Bonnie paused in mid-step when her phone rang with that annoyingly persistent ringtone she programmed just for her brother.

Llewellyn. The brother who was a product of her mom's illicit affair she had which led to her first divorce. The brother Bonnie tried to emulate when she didn't know any better when she was a little girl and didn't want to play with her Barbie's anymore. The brother who told her to come to him if one of the neighborhood knuckleheads got too fresh with her. The brother who committed murder. The brother who she suspected had a hand in her marriage to Damon Salvatore. The brother she wished would poof out of existence, or at the very least own up to what he did and turned himself into the Indian consul.

Family had so many definitions the word alone seemed to be made up at random. Family didn't always denote blood relation. It could mean people of like-minded interests and faith. Lost souls grouped together to survive. A community which only seemed to be able to rally together when tragedy struck. And no matter which form of family a person belonged to there were spoken and unspoken rules one had to follow. Family shared secrets and kept those secrets in a warehouse that no one should be able to breach. You went to war for your family. In extreme situations you even killed for them.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Bonnie answered her brother's call. "What do you want, Llewellyn?"

"Oh, thank God!" he exclaimed in jubilant relief. "Bonnie I don't have much time but I need a favor."

"No! No more favors, Llewellyn. I've done enough for you."

"I know and I'm so sorry, Bonnie. I am so deeply sorry for the position I've put you in. But listen…"

"I've heard enough. Stop calling me. I've given up having a career and in my own way my freedom so your dumb, murderous ass stays out of jail. Whatever bullshit you've found yourself in I suggest you find yourself out of. I can't and I _won't_ help you. Don't call me anymore."

"I might can get you out of your marriage with Damon without going through a long, nasty divorce."

Bonnie stopped breathing. If she weren't gripping the railing she might have tumbled backwards down the stairs out of shock. "How?" her voice cracked.

"An annulment. I can help you get an annulment. I just need your help. Please…just hear me out."

Heart treating her ribs like a battering ram, Bonnie climbed the rest of the stairs. No one working in the household needed to overhear this conversation.

"I'm listening," she said and locked herself in her bedroom. This she had to hear.

Chapter end.

**A/N: **So what do we think? Is Llewellyn credible and what will he request of his sister now? Another flashback may be coming next chapter. And Klaus' phone call was pretty random but he's another bloke who does nothing without some calculation attached. I hope you enjoyed this update. Thank you so much for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Thanks to you all you beautiful people who are really digging this story, and leaving your thoughts behind, and for adding to your lists! This chapter is my longest chapter to date and I hope you like it. I believe I said there might be a flashback in my last A/N, but unfortunately there's not. I couldn't get my mind wrapped around it at the moment. But there may be a curveball or two.

**Pairings: **Bonnie/Damon (main), Bonnie/Klaus (friendship), others when needed.

**Rating: **M

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the characters apart from original characters. Everyone else belongs to LJ Smith/CW Network. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

_Beep beep. _The distinct sound of the house alarm foretold the entry of the master of the house stepping foot in his kingdom. In her head Bonnie measured his steps. Twenty seven to reach the wet bar in the living room, forty-five to climb the stairs and arrive at the double doors leading to their bedroom.

With each pound of his feet on marble resonated with a single beat of Bonnie's heart. She had waited up for her husband not out of a desire to welcome him home, but because she needed to talk to Damon. Llewellyn had made her head spin and she just wanted to screw it back on straight.

His agitatedly spoken words in which he laid out the foundation for a plan that best fit the script of some action movie made Bonnie regret answering his call. There was no way Llewellyn had incriminating evidence of any kind on Damon. And to get this information all Bonnie had to do was make a trip to Dallas, Texas to Llewellyn's apartment and recover something he said was vital and needed to stay hidden.

When Bonnie questioned why he couldn't do it, Llewellyn had hmm and hawed about people watching his every move. Paranoia was a side-effect of many street corner pharmaceuticals.

Once their conversation concluded, Bonnie didn't know whether to laugh at her brother's foolhardiness or her desperation to believe he could wave a magic wand and make her marriage to Damon disappear.

For the moment she was still on square one.

However, talking with Llewellyn made Bonnie take an unwanted trip down dysfunctional memory lane. Periodically she dreamt about that girl whose name she didn't even know, and whose blood her brother had spilled. She wondered what that woman's life must have been like for her to turn to a life of prostitution. Wondered if anyone was still currently searching for her, pleading with her to just come home.

The door flew open and Bonnie immediately sat up. "Hey," she directed to the dark silhouette that hesitated upon seeing her wide awake.

"What are you still doing up?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"Can it wait until later? I'm tired. I've been running my mouth all day and the last thing I want to do is talk."

"It's really important and I promise to be brief," Bonnie bargained.

"Get on with it," he grimaced. The sooner she said what was on her mind the quicker he could make love to his pillow.

Damon muttered to himself as he undressed peeling off the layers, wrenching the clothing from his body to remove the stain of his god-awful day at work.

Bonnie fell out of bed and padded across the room to stand some distance away from her husband. She licked her lips and began.

"Damon…what did you do with that girl? In Mumbai? What happened to her body?"

His shirt was half way down his arms when he paused. Damon blinked rapidly and the corners of his well-formed mouth turned into a snarl.

Coldness reflected down on Bonnie in a menacing glare. "Why the hell do you want to know that?"

"I just do."

"I've had a terrible day at work and the last thing I want to do is be interrogated by my wife about some nameless whore. She's gone! End of story."

"But she had a family. They deserve to know what happened to her."

"Why do you care?"

"How can you ask me why I care? She may have been a nameless whore to you, but she may have been important to someone, and that someone deserves to know what happened to her remains. Just answer the question."

"I don't need this. All the shit I do for you and it's still not enough. Just leave it alone."

"I can't. My conscience won't let me."

"Oh yeah? Your conscience picks a fine time to start working. The girl is _dead_, Bonnie, and knowing what happened to her, how is that going to improve your life?"

"It won't, but I would still like to know."

"You only need to know what I deem you need to know and that's not something you need to know."

"You can't control everything!"

"On the contrary, I can."

Damon walked out of the room clad only in his boxers.

Sighing, Bonnie rubbed her forehead. She knew if she remained in this room she'd incur Damon's wrath with a thorough tongue-lashing or worse. Forced into giving him head or to spread her thighs. That prompted Bonnie to throw on a pair of jogging pants and a T-shirt. Decision made she was going to spend the night in one of the guest rooms knowing Damon would waste the entire night tossing and turning as was his routine whenever he's had a bad day at work; if sleep was the only thing he wanted on the menu.

_She must be out of her _fucking_ mind to ask me questions about that whore, _Damon gulped down several ounces of bourbon to calm his racing thoughts. He didn't sign up to come home and be harassed by a woman who would be rotting in an Indian prison with her brother had it not been for him calling in some people he knew who could get rid of all evidence pointing to a murder taking place in a seedy hotel room.

And in truth, he had no idea where that woman's body was taken and ultimately dumped, and he didn't want to know because it was none of his concern.

After drinking several glasses of bourbon, Damon ventured back upstairs to find his bedroom empty. Growling slightly and running a frustrated hand through his obsidian locks, he charged down the hall checking all the rooms until he came upon the one with its doors locked.

He banged on it with a closed fist to which Bonnie ignored as she burrowed deeper under the covers in a poor attempt to hide.

"Open this door, Bonnie!"

Damon pressed his ear along the wood to see if he could discern his wife breathing. He heard nothing but stark silence but knew she had sequestered herself in that room.

Bonnie didn't move a single muscle as the silence turned deafening. It was too soon to think she won. It was too soon to think Damon had given up and would, for once, leave her alone and let her be.

Seconds later she heard him fiddling with the door, and it swung open. He must have used the master key, Bonnie internally groaned.

"What are you doing in here?" he demanded.

"Go away."

"I've worked sixteen hours, had to deal with one bullshit disaster after another only to come home to my ungrateful _little wife_ who wants to act like a child and sleep in another bedroom. Because I won't answer her stupid question."

Irritated and upset, Bonnie flung the covers off. "Ungrateful? Acting like a child? If that isn't the pot calling the kettle. All I wanted to know was what happened to the person, the _human being_ my brother killed and you bite my head off."

"Because Bonnie, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you were the one to say you didn't want to know a gotdamn thing about that woman. You wanted to put the whole ordeal behind you. And now out of nowhere you want to know what happened to her when you couldn't muster up two shits to care in the past! And knowing what happened to her isn't going to change your circumstances if that's what you're hoping for. Now…come to bed."

"I'm in bed."

"Bonnie," the warning was evident but she didn't heed it.

"No, every time you have a bad day at work it affects your sleep and thus affects mine. I'm staying in here tonight."

"You _suck_ as a wife, I want you to know."

"And you're no picnic on Memorial Day either. Get out."

"This is my house! I don't have to leave."

"Thanks for reminding me. I had forgotten there for a second," Bonnie mouthed flippantly.

"Why are you trying to press my buttons? Do you want me to go off?"

"Now, correct me if I'm wrong but you already are. Fine. You won't leave then I will."

Bonnie scooted out of bed and tried to ignore Damon but couldn't since he was blocking the door, and of course he wasn't going to step out of the way.

She didn't look him in the eye, but stared blankly at his bare chest. "Move, please."

Damon didn't bulge. She was so tiny he'd have to do a squat in order to be eye-level with her, but her tininess had nothing to do with her giant size attitude that was rubbing him the wrong way.

Instead of doing what his wife requested, Damon hauled Bonnie over his shoulder to which she started to pound his back, kick her feet, and demand he put her down.

Damon smacked her ass in retaliation for the stings her punches brought to his back. The sound of the palm of his hand hitting her cotton covered bottom sounded like a muted gunshot.

Bonnie yelped. "I hate you so much!"

"Yeah, you and everyone else," Damon dumped her on their bed. Bonnie hastily pushed her hair out of her eyes and fought to keep his hands away.

Damon swatted hers aside, reached for her jogging pants and pulled them off. Next came her T-shirt and as he climbed on the bed, Bonnie slid back until her spine butted against the headboard.

Damon was beyond frustrated because Bonnie didn't understand the pressure he was under at work. She never asked him about his business dealings, never offered up any consoling advice when the idiots he employed confused their hands with their ass. She just frowned at him, ignored him, treated him like he was an insufferable nuisance when all he did was provide her with a beautiful home, and any other amenity she could ever want or desire. She had it made, but treated everything as if she were living out a life sentence.

But as much as she took him and all he did for her for granted, he didn't want to sleep alone. She herself might not give him any comfort, but as long as her body was near that was good enough for him.

Why she wanted to know what happened to the woman her brother needlessly killed made the wheels and pulleys in Damon's mind turn. She must have spoken with Llewellyn was the easily drawn conclusion Damon deduced. What had the little bastard requested of her now? Liars, thieves, and killers always wanted something. What had Llewellyn put in Bonnie's head that made her _think_ it was all right to question him about an event they agreed never to talk about again?

Even in the darkness of their bedroom the fear in Bonnie's eyes was palpable. Her rushed breathing fanned against his face and that pulled him up short. They merely stared at each other. Green and blue in a moonlit room. Damon eased away. He was too tired. His head was pounding and for once it was the one lodged on his shoulders and not the one between his legs.

"You stay here. I'll sleep in the guest room."

He left.

Bonnie released the breath she had been holding and sunk down into bed. Now more than ever she wanted that annulment. She couldn't keep living in fear of Damon and what he might do, in how he might extract his own domestic terrorism. Being a punching bag was reserved for those who wanted to be career boxers, and this marriage was a match Bonnie wanted to forfeit. She didn't used to be like this.

There had been a point where she spoke her mind and spoke it freely without the fear of recrimination. Now everything she did, said, her actions were chosen with the utmost care because of Damon's ever shifting moods. Hot one minute, cold the next. Bonnie was tired of living in suspense.

He held all the cards, pulled all the strings, causing her to stumble on her wooden feet. If what Llewellyn disclosed to her this afternoon held a muster seed worth of truth to it, she may be free within a couple of months.

The euphoria of that idea came rushing up and for one wild moment Bonnie wanted to laugh and smile. But just as quickly that bubble was popped with one harrowing reality.

At the end of the day, Damon would never let her go.

He would never succumb to any demands, no coercion, no blackmail, nothing. And even if by some miracle, Bonnie were to get out of her marriage, Damon would spend the rest of his life and exhaust all of his resources in making hers hell. She knew it. Hell, she could practically envision his campaign to ruin her life.

But what were her alternatives? Remain under this gilded roof and pretend? Pretend she was a happily married woman surrounded by all the finer trappings of life money could buy? There was nothing here she wanted of that Bonnie was sure.

What about the man himself? Some vague part of Bonnie's psyche questioned. _Damon doesn't love me and he sure as hell doesn't like me,_ Bonnie flipped over in bed. _I don't know why he's trying to hold on to me so tightly._ The sex may have been off the fucking chain, and muddled something's, but Bonnie wasn't so blinded by Damon's astute ability to work the middle that she couldn't see him for the irredeemable prick that he was.

She need more than just sex. Bonnie wanted love. She wanted to feel like she mattered, that her opinions were important, that her feelings were taken into consideration. She just wanted to be seen as human and Damon couldn't provide that very important piece to her. Mainly because he wasn't human himself.

The only handful of emotions Bonnie had ever seen her husband illustrate was rage, indifference, and lust. Love, kindness, sympathy, compassion, even cowardice Damon was as unfamiliar with exhibiting those emotions as she was with the stock market.

Damon had only taken two steps outside of his door before slumping against the wall. Wanting something and having something were too vastly different things. What he currently had, Damon was beginning to question if he wanted to keep it.

* * *

He wasn't getting any work done. In fact, Damon stopped staring into oblivion to check the Movado clock hanging from the wall in his office. His brows mashed together in consternation as he realized he had been doing absolutely nothing for an entire hour and a half.

Once he rushed into the office after battling gridlock traffic, Damon barked at his assistant Trenice Burkins to hold all his calls and reschedule his early morning meetings.

He had gotten no sleep as he fretfully tossed and turned in a bed that never got warm, and that he paid too damn much for. Damon's stubbornness refused to budge a millimeter so his pride could tuck tail and he could schlep back to his bedroom and lay with his wife. Bonnie had more than gotten on his nerves; she had pissed him the hell off and for a second, for a split second he saw himself raising his hand…

His personal extension rang thankfully interrupting where his tumultuous thoughts were headed.

"What?" he bellowed after picking up the receiver.

"I know you didn't want to be disturbed, Mr. Salvatore, but your brother is on line two."

"Thanks, Trenice. I'll get it," Damon pressed the flashing button on his phone and did his best to remove some of the irascibility out of his tone. "Stefan, long time no hear. Where the hell are you?"

His little brother chuckled ruefully. "Has anyone told you that you need to work on your phone manner? It's appalling."

"And has anyone told you that CEO's don't have time to kiss anyone's ass they aren't trying to climb into financial bed with? So where are you now?"

"Still in London. I was asked to stay on for an additional six weeks to teach this medical bioinformatics course. The pay was too tempting to turn down, but I should be stateside in the next two weeks. How's married life?"

"Let's talk about something else."

"That bad, eh?"

"I'll just say this…marriage isn't for everyone."

"I've seen Bonnie with my own two eyes so from a totally superficial standpoint I can see why you married her, but other than that you two…don't seem like you have anything in common. I try to keep my nose out of your business, but…"

"But what, Stefan?" Damon tugged on his tie because for some weird reason it felt like it was tightening around his neck like a noose.

"But you barely even knew her before you two got hitched."

"We're still together."

"That you are," Stefan concurred grudgingly.

"She's not a gold digger," Damon said a bit defensively because he knew where Stefan was going with this conversation since they've had it so many times in the past.

Damon wouldn't say Stefan didn't like Bonnie. They've only met three times during the whole of his relationship with his wife. He would just say…Stefan didn't trust her. One minute she didn't exist, and the next Damon was requesting his brother to stand in as his best man at his wedding. So Damon could understand Stefan's apprehension. However, the elder took it as an insult Stefan seemingly had little faith in his ability to take care of himself. Damon knew what he was doing.

Stefan was the brains, Damon had the looks. Well, to be fair both Salvatore brothers could hold their own in the drool department, and each came equipped with a sound mind that could arrive at the correct conjecture within seconds of a problem being explained to them. Where they differed in personality boiled down to temperament and heart. Stefan had one that actually beat inside his chest, while Damon encased his in rock.

Having a heart for others is what led Stefan to study medicine and become a leading neurosurgeon.

When Stefan wasn't teaching one advanced medical course after another, or performing life-saving surgery, he traveled to lesser known countries providing medical services for those who couldn't afford the very basics in healthcare. That was Stefan. The Saint.

Damon didn't begrudge his brother one bit, but at the same time he didn't care to know the number of halos Stefan had stacked on his head.

"Give me some credit, brother," Stefan harped in Damon's ear bringing him back from his musings. "I know Bonnie didn't marry you strictly for your money. I don't know. She seems nice but strange."

"The same could be said about you, about all of us. Besides, my marriage with Bonnie is none of your business."

"You're right it's not. But…if you need to talk you know I'm here."

"How sweet," Damon raised the pitch of his voice.

"Prick."

"I wouldn't be me if I weren't one."

Stefan snorted. "Bonnie must love you to be able to put up with your stellar attitude."

That made Damon shift a bit in his seat. Love wasn't even on the list of reasons why she agreed to be his wife.

"Yes," Damon's voice croaked and he coughed to clear it, "and that's why you were cursed with a face _only_ a mother could love."

"Lying only suits you when you're standing in front of people you pay to be around you, Damon. You and I both know I am gorgeous."

"Please."

"And brilliant," Stefan persisted.

"Little bro, if you don't get to the point in why you called me…"

"I see you're in a mood so let me get right to it. Elise is circling again."

Damon pinched the bridge of his nose. Elise was their deceased father's former second wife. Why she continued to pester them when the old man had been dead and buried for the last three years baffled Damon and made his exasperation for old men going through mid-life crises spike. Giuseppe Salvatore had been sixty-two years old when he married thirty-one year old Elise EL Khouri, a woman who ran and operated a very popular spa and gym in Scottsdale, Arizona.

"What did she want?" Damon grumbled.

"She wanted to get in touch with you. Apparently her condo is in the middle of reservations and she's come back from Europe and was wondering…well she's basically looking for a place to crash. I told her I couldn't help her out."

Damon laughed mirthlessly. "She's not staying with me!" He was already dealing with one bitchy female. He certainly didn't need another stuffed on his plate.

"Then if I were you I'd block any unfamiliar numbers, close the blinds and pretend you're not home. Why she's bugging us when she has a million friends I'll never understand it."

Damon remained mum. The last time he laid eyes on his former stepmother…things didn't end so well.

"Look, man I have a ton of work piling up on my desk and I'm running late for a meeting. We can pick this up whenever you drag your sorry ass back across the pond. Sound good?" Damon hinted.

"Fine. Tell Bonnie I said hello.

"Mm-hmm," Damon murmured distractedly. "Talk to you later."

"Later."

Hanging up the phone, Damon dumped his weight against the back of his chair and rubbed his eyes.

Bonnie asking questions about that whore's remains. His former stepmother trying to infringe on his life. Work heading down the toilet and out to the ocean at a momentum he couldn't slow down, Damon was positive his sanity or what was left of it was getting close to snapping.

Rising from his imported crocodile leather chair, Damon ambled over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked at the Los Angeles skyline. Here he stood on the twenty-fifth floor of his empire and he contemplated jumping out of the window. His death would make too many people happy and he lived just to spite people.

Damon's eyes traveled to his wedding band. Bonnie hadn't even picked it out. Everything about their relationship was glaringly one-sided. His life had taken over hers like a virus. She wore what he had others pick out. She lived in a house he had built from the foundation up with his team of contractors and architects. She drove a car he thought suited the wife of a multi-millionaire. There was very little about Bonnie's life that reflected _her. _

Two months ago, hell two days ago that wouldn't have bothered Damon. Why was he even thinking about this? What did it matter? Leave it up to Stefan's magnanimous observational skills to see the flaw in Damon's painstakingly constructed façade. He and Bonnie shared nothing in common save their hormones. She wouldn't be with him if it hadn't been for her brother's fuck up, but again the reason couldn't change the fact Bonnie was his wife.

Damon heard a commotion outside of his door. Raised voices. One eyebrow arched to his hairline. He took a step to find out what in hell was going on when his office door burst open.

His face wanted to plummet to the bowels of Hades, but instead shriveled like a raisin. "What the _fuck_ are you doing here?" he roared.

"I tried to stop…" Trenice attempted to explain but snapped her jaw shut once she saw the thunderous expression on her boss' face.

"Tell your assistant to take an early lunch, Damon."

"Trenice you stay right there."

"Well if you want this entire floor to hear this conversation…"

"Mr. Salvatore?" Trenice's voice quivered with uncertainty.

Could his life get any worse? Damon wondered.

* * *

"Llewellyn is full of _shit_."

That statement was delivered with as much spite as only a woman could deliver who had heard every slick line, rhyme, and scheme there was to hear. No question was left open as to how she felt about the confession that traipsed through painted lips that had been going a mile a minute since two diminutive women came together to max out their credit cards.

Bonnie spun away from the three-sided mirror clutching a Diane von Furstenberg cocktail dress in her hands to gawk at her cousin.

Jelena Howard wasn't known for having a soft tongue or a delicate bedside manner. She worked in a profession where her corporation was her body, and its talent for enticing men and women to crowd the arena gift shop and the online store to purchase anything bearing her face. And while the outfits she performed in left little to the imagination, Jelena played things close to the vest. Her cosmetic line of choice was poker face.

Jelena was the only person Bonnie ever spilled her guts to about that night in Mumbai. And as Bonnie examined things more closely, it became obvious that her cousin and husband shared more things in common than she did with the man she married. Jelena and Damon were cutthroat elitists who thought nothing could get done correctly if they didn't do it themselves.

When Bonnie needed tough love, she turned to Jelena who never held back. Never sugarcoated anything to make it easier to swallow.

"You think he's lying about being able to help me get an annulment?" Bonnie asked.

Jelena looked away from the clothing rack, her ice-green eyes spearing Bonnie right into her soul. "Llewellyn can't even cross the street without assistance, so how the hell is he going to help you end your marriage? Because he might have dirt on Damon? Who doesn't have dirt on someone in this town? You're so pathetically naïve. If it weren't for our similarities in looks I'd definitely question if we're truly family."

Bonnie's jaw ticked. She and Jelena were nearly identical. They were the same height, carried the same build, their hair was the same length, texture, and color, complexions were reflections of one another. Their only subtle difference was eye color.

Where Bonnie's were more hazel-green, mossy, or olive depending on the light, Jelena's verdant eyes were pale almost gray.

As they swayed their ample hips from one high-end boutique on Rodeo Drive to another, men in tailored European cut suits, or those in fashionably ripped jeans nearly gave themselves whiplash as the cousins frolicked to and fro. Jelena ate up the admiration because she was used to it being a Devil Girl dancer. Bonnie on the other hand kept her eyes forward.

The duo may have been twins to the world at large, but they were as different as night and day.

"I can't stay in this marriage anymore, Jelena. Every single day Damon and I are at each other's throats and when we're not fighting then I'm ignoring him, and he finds some petty way to get back at me. He's abusive."

Jelena's eye twitched. She might not be tender-hearted, but she damn sure didn't approve of any man abusing a woman, especially not a woman who was her blood.

"How? Has he hit you?"

"Abuse doesn't always have to be physical," Bonnie bit out quietly and stuck the dress back on the rack.

"No, it doesn't. Bonnie if you're letting that man treat you like a doormat, sorry not sorry but it's your fault."

"What?!" Bonnie screeched. She covertly looked around and noticed a few shoppers frowning in her direction. She walked around the clothing rack to stand beside her cousin. "Are you getting Botox injections and that shit has leaked into your brain? How can you say it's my fault Damon is an asshole? He was already one before I married him."

Jelena's smile lacked warmth. "If you knew that and haven't lifted a finger to make sure he checked that shit at the door then yeah that's how I can say you're at fault. Sweetie," Jelena turned fully to face her cousin. "You're a Bennett as much as you are a Howard and no woman on either side of the coin would put up that shit, at least not without taking advantage of it. Damon is only going to do what you allow him to get away with if you don't stand up for yourself. Get a backbone."

Bonnie wearily shook her head. Yeah, it sounded simple in theory, as most theories did, but it wasn't that easy. "You don't know how he can get."

Jelena snorted. "Honey, I work, live, breathe in a profession where the more money a man has the bigger the asshole he is. I've seen men choke their wives in full view of the public, called them whore, slut, bitch, poured champagne on them and threaten to light them up. So no, I do know how it can get. Do those women leave or demand better? No. They take it. So my question is, why are you? You're smarter than that. At least you were."

"Hey!" Bonnie snapped. "I don't have a choice. Damon is the one thing standing in the way of keeping Llewellyn out of prison. And to be honest, he scares me, Jelena."

Hearing that made Jelena's brow furrow. "Do you think he would put his hands on you?"

Bonnie nibbled the inside of her cheek. "I don't know. I just know I don't want to stick around to find out. I know Llewellyn probably can't help me, but if what he told me has a small possibility of being legit then it at least gives me some leverage. Damon controls everything."

"Then take back control of your life. That concept is not hard to grasp," Jelena moved on to a rack of Monique Lhuilier pant suits. "Get off his nipple and put that degree you have to use. Get a job. Second, is to drop your brother. Let him worry about his own jacked up life because trust he's not stressing himself out about yours. Third, have a back-up strategy. Someone who has connections that can help you if things turn from bad to worse."

Before Jelena could continue a sales associate strolled over to them. "Are you ladies finding everything all right? We have some lovely items on sale you may be interested in."

Both women flashed plastic smiles. "We're good," Jelena said and penned the sales associate with her notoriously cold glare that caused the woman to scurry off. Jelena resumed her search.

Bonnie absorbed what her cousin had shared with her so far. It was practical and sound advice she'd be a fool not to take. Finding a job in this economy may take longer than it's ever taken Bonnie in the past to achieve employment, and to do so without Damon becoming aware made the challenge more challenging. Yet she had to start somewhere.

"Bonnie?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you sure annulling your marriage is…worth it? Worth giving someone with Damon's portfolio up?"

"We don't love each other," Bonnie stated. "And I don't care about his money."

"Love is overrated in my book."

"Maybe to you, Jelena but I need to be with someone I know loves and respects me. I _want _to fall in love. I don't want to be with someone that I just look good standing next to. Damon and I…in the long run we won't work. This marriage is nothing but a lie and I'm tired of living it."

Jelena didn't speak for several seconds. "All right," she said at last. "I think you two could make it work because from what you've told me, he's possessive of you. Men are only possessive of something they're afraid of losing. That tells me, he cares."

At that Bonnie made an unladylike snort. "Trust me, Damon Salvatore doesn't care about me."

"So you say."

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "One minute you were ready to chop his balls off because you thought he was turning me black and blue, and now…why are you trying to be his cheerleader? Damon is a terrible person."

"Terrible person he may be, but fine he certainly is. You've been with him for over a year and you feel nothing except disgust for him? Nothing more? Nothing less? The sight of him makes you want to puke?"

Folding her arms over her chest, Bonnie poked her hip out. "On most days."

"What about during the night?" Jelena's voice deepened in octave. "How do you feel about him then? Those hips of yours suggest the bottom half of you _loves _him."

"Shut up," Bonnie threatened her face not to smile shyly.

Jelena slithered past her cousin to head to the opposite end of the boutique. "You can let that part of him go, too?"

Despite her yearning to head in the opposite direction, Bonnie followed behind Jelena. "Our relationship begins and ends with that. Sex," she whispered.

Jelena browsed through a table littered with carefully organized bracelets and rings. "And you wouldn't bat an eye if another woman wanted to step into your shoes, and warm Damon's stick at night?"

Bonnie flushed. The heat channeling through her like an electrical current was synonymous with only one emotion—annoyance.

Glass dolls were beautiful to behold but were empty on the inside and that's exactly the kind of exterior she and Damon's marriage had. If someone else wanted it they were more than happy to it.

That's what her mind said while a smaller voice buried deep inside screamed something different.

Her shopping excursion ended three hours later. Belly full of Thai, liver doing its best to break down the Cosmos she tossed back, Bonnie fought with her numerous bags as she entered her home.

She was relieved of her packages by Armand, their in-house concierge aka butler.

"Mr. Salvatore is already home, madam," Armand alerted Bonnie. "He's in the study if you would like to join him before dinner."

Needless to say Bonnie was shocked Damon was home way before seven in the evening.

"Thank you, Armand."

The man bowed gallantly and floated away.

For a moment Bonnie stood rooted to the spot. They hadn't spoken since their fight last night. The smart thing to do was to head upstairs and ignore him, but maybe Bonnie had developed some glutton-for-punishment attitude. That was the only explanation she could come up with as she took the familiar route to his study.

Pushing the sliding doors apart, Bonnie's eyes landed on the form sitting in the middle of the leather sofa. She rounded the object and stared at the man she spent far too much time thinking and talking about.

His tie was gone, gray shirt unbuttoned at the collar, head inclined back, eyes closed.

Studying him Bonnie realized her entire world centered on Damon Salvatore. His wants, his likes, his dislikes. For the last year and four months she stopped being herself out of fear he would go back on his word, contact the authorities in Mumbai and lead them straight to Llewellyn. That fear was still there but it seemed less…prominent now. Now that she had a tentative plan for her life worked out.

When they initially met Jenna had been the one who had creamed her panties just at the mere sight of him. She had spotted Damon first and wanted to go over and introduce herself, but Bonnie didn't think it would a be a good idea considering all the eye candy that surrounded one of the most handsome men Bonnie could admit to ever seeing in person.

It wasn't just his looks that intimidated Bonnie that night, but the coldness and emptiness in his eyes. She just didn't get a good vibe from him.

Damon wondered when Bonnie would say something. She was hovering and normally she didn't hover. In fact she did what she could to not have to be in the same room with him if she didn't have to be.

Slowly he opened his eyes. His pretty little wife looked exceptionally beautiful today, which meant she had hit the streets and spent more of his money.

"If you're here to start round two of your cross examination then I plead the fifth," he said.

Arguing with her after being ambushed in his office by his former stepmother was the last thing Damon wanted. His exchange with Elise had provided fodder for the masses.

"_What are you doing here, Elise?"_

"_I only wanted to see my favorite stepson."_

_Damon scoffed and then shooed Trenice out of his office. He ran his fingers over his tie and didn't move an inch from behind his desk. Elise was still beautiful, the kind that made one uncomfortable. Russet skin that spoke of her Moroccan heritage, oval brown eyes, full lips, the body of a women ten years her junior, Elise could make an impotent man cry. _

"_Stefan already filled me in on your plight, and sorry I can't help you out," Damon cut right to the meat of the matter._

_Elise only smiled and headed over to a painting to which she fingered it. "How is your wife, Damon?"_

_He didn't comment. The curiosity in her voice was as real as her gel fingernails. _

"_I'd so love to meet her one day. Does she know about me…about us?"_

_Damon's already sour attitude became even more rancid. "There is no us," he countered heatedly. "There's never been an us."_

"_Perhaps not," Elise lifted her shoulders which shifted her fine strands of jet hair. "I can keep a secret and it's for all the best in the long run. I certainly don't want to be responsible for breaking up a happy home. She does make you happy, right?" she grinned slyly._

"_Get the hell out of my office, Elise. Don't make me call security."_

"_Please do," her eyes lit up with glee. "I would love for them to know the man who…"_

"_Shut up! You're not staying with me or my wife. You come here again I will have you arrested for trespassing. Leave!" Damon uttered through gritted teeth._

_Elise did just the opposite and approached and stood on the other side of his desk, pressing her hands down on the glass surface. "I want what Giuseppe promised me, and I'm not leaving California until I get it. You take care." _

_Damon watched as Elise headed towards the door, but then she stopped, pivoted to face him, and with her prolonged silence, he felt his heart pounding. _

"_Oh, and before I forget, but would you like me to pass on a message to your son?"_

_He had nothing to say because his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth._

"Damon?"

Bonnie's sweet voice snapped him out of it causing him to jump a little. "What?"

"Are…you okay?"

He honestly didn't know.

Chapter end.

**A/N: **What do we think? Llewellyn may have dirt on Damon but what could it be, and still is it credible? Damon's former stepmother is in town and dropped a bomb, hope I don't lose any readers because of it, but again what's her story and did Damon know he was a father all along? I'll go ahead and say no that's not the dirt Llewellyn may or may not have on Damon. And Jelena Howard isn't an original character but she is one on the VH1 show Hit the Floor in case any where wondering. She's a professional dancer for a basketball team, not a stripper just to clear up any confusion. Will Bonnie take her cousin's advice? We'll see. Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Okay so I'm back with an update! Sorry it's taken longer than usual. Thank you all for all of the amazing reviews! I know some were a bit thrown with the possibility of Damon being a father, but for now I'm leaving that a bit ambiguous. I probably won't update again until after the holiday so I'll go ahead and wish everyone a safe and Happy 4th of July.

**Pairings: **Bamon, (main), Klonnie (friendship), others when needed.

**Rating: **M

**Disclaimer: **The only characters I own are original characters. The plot is mine, too. Everyone and everything else, with a few minor exceptions belong to LJ Smith/The CW. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

Shakespeare said that an empty vessel makes the loudest sound. Could that sound overpower sirens, the screeching of airplanes taking off? Could it compete with verbal altercations launched between two people stuck in a relationship neither one was getting what he or she expected to get?

People haggled and fought over the littlest of things that it was a wonder objectives were accomplished from sun up to sun down. A person could hear a million different sounds a day in different pitch. There never seemed to be a break in noise. When there was one it often came with a price. Night brought the quiet but didn't guarantee solace.

Ice cubes jiggled in the rock glass filled with bourbon. The smooth motion of the stretch limo flying over poorly attended pot holes couldn't mask the note of frustration in Damon's voice as he conducted yet another business call.

Bonnie kept her gaze averted to the outside world as it flew by; however, her ears were listening very carefully to Damon's one-sided conversation.

He never confided in her what had been bothering him the other night. They had dinner in relative silence. Other than asking her how many piles of his money she burned while shopping, that was the crux of their conversation. He excused himself before they were told what was on the menu for dessert, and locked himself up in his man cave.

That night he hadn't come to bed and Bonnie didn't have the slightest inclination to leave the comfort of her room to entice him upstairs. When she saw him in the morning he was irritable, which was to be expected, and rude just to add the icing on the cake. In so few words, he told her if she were going to venture out she might as well take her pampered butt to The Christine Foundation and do something with the position he basically had to suck some major dick to get her.

Crude and crass with such a beautiful face was a crime against humanity, and the resentment in her heart toward her dear beloved husband only tripled. Bonnie was beginning to want his ass dead.

"If it's one thing I know how to do," Damon's words cut into her thoughts, "is how to cross my T's and dot my I's."

When his hand landed on top of hers it startled Bonnie. She whipped her head to stare at him but Damon wasn't looking back at her. Instead, like she had been, his attention was diverted to the outside world peering through tinted glass.

"You'll be hearing from my lawyers, Harrison. Believe that."

Bonnie swallowed and frowned when Damon's hand either consciously or unconsciously tightened on hers. More bitter words were exchanged between her husband and the invisible Harrison before Damon ended the call, dislodged his Bluetooth, and tossed it aside.

He drained the contents of his glass and reached for the decanter to reload.

"That's your fifth drink, Damon. Don't you think you should ease up on the booze? Enough of it will be served at this thing you're dragging me to."

"This thing," his words slurred for a moment but the sarcasm was still heavily prevalent, "is the opening of the LA Multicultural Center that yours truly," Damon pointed at his chest, "donated a _large _sum of money to. So act appreciative to be there and don't cause a scene."

Bonnie scoffed indignantly. "I'm not the one who manhandled his wife like a caveman that had tongues wagging and folks Instagramming. That was all you."

Damon gave his wife a side-long look and smirked. "I see you locked docile Bonnie away for the evening. Good. She annoys the hell out of me."

"Something is wrong with you, Damon."

He laughed boisterously at that. "You're just _now _getting the memo? For an educated woman you can be slow on the uptake at times. But," he sighed almost in fondness, "I didn't exactly marry you for your brain," he snorted and finished off his latest drink.

Right before she retorted, Bonnie's eyes flew to the driver who quickly looked away but she caught him observing them in the rearview mirror. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but she reassured herself he's probably heard all manner of conversations spoken between husband and wives; boyfriends and girlfriends, or same-sex couples spilling their souls and grievances with one another in a never-ending tap of broken promises, destroyed trust, and lack of respect.

At this moment Damon was the equivalent of a landmine but Bonnie didn't care. So what she was draped in a thirty thousand dollar Alexander McQueen haute couture dress, or the diamonds around her neck came to the staggering price of half a million dollars. She would take it and her earrings off and treat Damon to a little education about how matters were handled in the South.

Yet she pushed the button that rolled up the partition for a scrap of privacy.

She twisted in the seat to stare at her husband whose breathing turned labored. His skin was flushed, a tell-tale sign of his pre-inebriation, and sweat already dotted around his hairline.

"There are a lot of foul things I can call you and I will but not right now. But I will say this. If my situation wasn't what it is _you _would be the last man on this damn planet I would _ever_ agree to marry because you are a fucking elitist snob over-privileged bastard and it shames me that I am married to you. Don't worry about my behavior. Unlike you I have class and I know how to conduct myself in public."

She really had no idea what to expect. The contact of his open palm against her cheek, hand around her neck, him outright laughing in her face before launching into a degrading tirade riddled with debasing insults meant to make her feel as significant as a speck of dust on a piece of furniture.

What Bonnie got was Damon moistening his bottom lip with his rosy tongue, and him boldly massaging himself through his designer pants.

"Oh my god, you're disgusting!" she turned away.

No, what he was, was horny. Turned on so swift his balls truly were suffering. Why Bonnie couldn't seem to figure out or understand that opinionated women with surly attitudes and a salty disposition appealed to him like nothing else in the world, Damon honestly didn't know.

It was part of his disease, of course. The disease called sexual ardor at inappropriate times. In reality there was no medical terminology for his problem, no explanation compliments of the _DSM-IV-TR_. Maybe he was into sadomasochism who knew? Or some other perversion. But what Damon was sure of and what he would kill for right now was a taste or even a sniff of his wife's pussy despite knowing she might take a Jimmy Choo to his head and club him good.

That hardened him even more. Nevertheless, he cleared his throat, adjusted his hard on, and pressed another button to speak directly with their hired chauffer.

"Yes, Mr. Salvatore?"

"How much longer until we get there?"

"We'll be arriving within the next six minutes, sir."

Damon released the button and sat back in his seat. Bonnie was still livid, he could tell.

"Relax," he told her at length. "I'm not going to do anything. Not yet."

That did not put her at ease. So Bonnie opted to talk about something else.

"Who were you on the phone with just now?"

Immediately Damon stiffened. He had been on the phone with Harrison Wainwright, his former stepmother's attorney. Ever since Elise barged into his office and delivered that spiel about him having a son, implying he was the father of some phantom child he had never seen…after the shock wore off, Damon wasted not a second getting in contact with his lawyer who then commissioned his PI to start an investigation.

Yes, he did fuck Elise but it had happened only once and he wore a rubber. Damon had been in a vulnerable state and Elise came on to him. He didn't mean for things to go as far as they did, but it was a part of his past that he couldn't expunge from his mental record.

Damon doubted very seriously he fathered a child with his father's second wife, but nothing was ever a hundred percent fool proof. And if by some hapless twist of fate he did…

_No_, he terminated those thoughts with a fatal injection of cold hard facts. The cold hard fact being Elise was after something far more profitable than back child support payments. What she was after came with a much higher price tag attached.

Getting him was just a bonus, gratuity to which to brag to all her little desperate housewife friends about.

Damon had his obsessions; he had never been blind to the fact he had a severe inability with letting things go. But being someone's obsession came with a different set of rules, he was discovering, and Elise had been very sly in her acquisition of his manly treasure.

He met eyes with his wife and wanted to tell her the truth, yet he couldn't. Not until he knew for sure if he honestly had something to worry about or something to tell her.

"It was just some work stuff," he finally answered her query.

Bonnie nodded and looked away. He typically replied to any question about himself or his business dealings with evasiveness. Why she thought for once Damon might open up and share and especially after the way she exploded…she should just stop trying to be a part of his life in areas he didn't want her presence around or her involvement. He made that more than obvious. He only wanted her to know and see what he deemed important.

Like he said he didn't marry her for her brain. As a feminist that infuriated her. As a twenty-three year old woman who never really had a serious boyfriend it made her feel cheated.

Askance, Bonnie saw Damon reach for Visine and Binaca. Chased away the redness of his eyes and the foul stench of drink off his tongue.

They had arrived at the grand opening of the Los Angeles Multicultural Center in the heart of Chinatown. The red carpet had been pulled out, shampooed and vacuumed and was lined with photographers as all the important beautiful people from: movie stars to philanthropists, musicians, and artisans stood stoic and proud and had their image captured.

The center itself served as the backdrop and Bonnie could only describe the shape of the building like a fancy desert. Pretty to look at, but impossible to eat without destroying its aerodynamic structure.

Once the car rolled to a stop, the driver bounded out and opened Damon's door first. He took his sweet time putting his mules on the asphalt, making a production out of buttoning his tailored-like-a-glove tuxedo jacket. Waving at a few photogs who began shouting his name, Damon walked around the trunk of the limo and opened Bonnie's door.

He held his hand toward her and she allowed herself to be pulled from the oversized vehicle. Bonnie tried her best not to grimace and wince because the flash of the cameras blinded her. She fixed her face into its hologram smile, a digital copy of the real thing.

Damon wove his fingers over Bonnie's, lifted her hand to his mouth and laid a gentle kiss to her knuckles before winking. There he was the charmer that had a rotten soul.

As a couple they posed for pictures, then individually. Damon fielded questions from the various news outlets that crowded the downtown Los Angeles street, thrusting digital recorders and microphones into his face. Not once did he stumble in coming up with an answer that made him sound as informative as a tour guide. Damon dropped statistics like he was sprouting off the capitals of the states. He delivered anecdotes that made the interviewer laugh and glance into the camera perched over his or her shoulder saying what a hoot the CEO of Immortalis Incorporated was.

Bonnie either remained off to the side putting on a wonderful show of a woman enamored of her husband. She stopped counting after hitting ten the number of times she was asked what designer she was wearing. No one cared about her. Not the her that mattered anyways.

She couldn't have felt more like a peacock. Her entire outfit selected by a team of hired stylists and fashion gurus turned her into a walking contradiction. The center was built to showcase the work of local artists' who came from very humble beginnings, and in some cases were still poverty stricken. And here she paraded around in a dress, shoes, and jewelry worth more than any of them would see in a lifetime.

These events, Bonnie uncovered and had always suspected was hardly ever about the people these charities and centers were erected to help. It was about tax write-offs, and bringing in the tourists for an endless surplus of revenue. The mighty dollar bill.

What seemed like an hour of horror finally came to an abrupt end as Damon stopped dishing out interviews, and ushered Bonnie inside. She could now relax her face but only marginally.

* * *

On the inside of the building, it's was procession of pageantry in the form of artificially darkened skin, rhinoplasty, chest augmentation, tailored threads, expensive time pieces, six hundred dollar haircuts, $3000 extensions, collagen injections—and that was just the men.

Swarovski crystal necklines or bodices, flowing yards of chiffon, tulle, or jersey, fashions hot off the runaway flitted around leaving behind a trail of Chanel No.5.

The higher the tax bracket the gaudier the costume.

It only took ten minutes before they were separated. Damon, heading off with a group of polished, socioeconomically stable ruffians. The wife left to find her own entourage to keep her entertained.

Bonnie found herself standing among a circle of well-to-do women who flashed planet size diamonds on their skinny fingers, sipping the smoothest champagne from Waterford crystal flutes. It went down like water but the buzz would be felt hours later, loosening tongues and inhibitions; a liquid polygraph test.

They talked of nothing of substance. Merely comparing and contrasting whose husband, boyfriend, or sugar daddy spoiled them with the most ostentatious jewelry or car for the month. Every now and a then a disparaging comment about a rival would be stage whispered and there'd be a chorus of giggles and squeals and mock admonishment. Yet the greed, the hunger, the thirst for power turned beautiful faces into obscene visages of soullessness.

Bonnie was bored already.

After twenty minutes of shifting around trying to follow the superficial flow of conversation, Bonnie politely excused herself to actually look at the art on display.

She could give credit where it was due. A vast amount of the world's ethnicities was being showcased in the center. Art work depicting daily life in American Samoa. Smiling faces of women with beautifully and tightly coiled or braided hair with flawless ebony skin sending their children off to school. Color was infused in nearly every piece Bonnie studied. From sculptures, to tapestries, to intricately woven baskets it was endless and provided the only real warmth in the place.

Bonnie wondered off to one room that featured work from Russian immigrants. At the very back of the room behind thick Plexiglas was a replica of a door of a Cathedral that had been bombed during the Second World War that reportedly saved the lives of fifteen small children.

Seconds may have ticked off the clock before she was no longer standing alone. Bonnie merely glanced at the person who cast a shadow over her. However the glance turned into a gaze because there was simply too much body to cover in a mere glance.

The man was abnormally tall—to her. Anyone over five-nine was a giant in Bonnie's eyes.

The overhead recessed lighting beamed down making the man's flaxen hair glow like sunlight.

Without prompt, he started speaking explaining to her the importance of the piece that had them transfixed. The information delivered via a baritone voice with the barest hint of an accent poured into Bonnie painting a hauntingly vivid scene transporting her some seventy years in the past. Her standing in this building with this enigmatic man next to her would have been against the law during those times. Her marriage ruled unconstitutional as well.

But, she could hear the bombs exploding. See the debris. Hear those children's wails.

The man turned his head ever so slowly in her direction and the blast of blue stemming from his eyes instantly made Bonnie nervous.

"Do you think you could have survived something like that?" he asked suddenly.

Bonnie blinked. "Ummm," her tongue dried up. "I don't believe so. Maybe. It depends on the fight to survive."

Once she had been a firm believer in attraction at first sight. How it could catch you off guard and make a person stutter. And this man, he was certainly that. Attractive. The stuttering kind of attractive. The kind that could complete with the likes of model David Gandy or actor Chris Hemsworth. As Bonnie's head tilted a bit to the side the man did kind of resemble the Australian actor. Guessing off the top of her head she'd say they were the same height but this man was trimmer.

Automatically Bonnie pegged him as an accountant or the owner of an accounting firm, or perhaps a sports agent, or lawyer. He was someone with means that was easy enough to tell. She deconstructed him beginning with his suit and tie and ending with his leather shoes. Hand stitched fabric made by a pair of steady Italian hands.

Bonnie's cheeks reddened as she realized he caught her ogling him. He offered up a cinematic smile that made the lines around his eyes more conspicuous. If she had to guess his age Bonnie would place him anywhere between twenty-eight to thirty-seven years old. It was so hard to tell sometimes.

"I'm sorry for staring," she blurted out and faced forward once more.

"No, I should apologize. I'm at fault since I opened my big mouth and started talking like I'm some deep expert about art. The least I can do now is tell you my name," the man stretched out a hand.

Bonnie looked at it before staring up at him. She placed her hand in his noting its warmth, the texture of his skin. His hand wasn't soft; it wasn't rough either but a nice medium between the two. He probably played a lot of sports during his leisure time.

"Ivan Skarsgaard," he pumped Bonnie's hand once.

"Bonnie Bennett…" she almost tacked on Salvatore but decided not to. She was wearing her ring and that was the only acknowledgement she was going to use to show she was married.

Their hands disconnected but unbeknownst to either one of them a connection had remained behind.

"Nice to meet you, Bonnie. So…which one of these is your favorite so far?"

Bonnie blinked rapidly and tried to remember just exactly where she was. "Oh…I'm kind of partial to the more colorful depictions of inner city life."

"I liked those, too," Ivan smiled almost shyly now. "Although you haven't seen color until you're standing under a Nairobi sky. Or seen the turquoise color of the lagoons, or the rolling green hills of Iceland."

"Iceland? Is that where you're from? I detected an accent but I couldn't place it."

Interest lit up Ivan's face and he nodded. "Born there but raised virtually everywhere. Do you speak any other languages?"

Bonnie hedged, "A little. I'm fluent in three. Four to be technical since I speak English; but the other languages I speak are Spanish, French, and Portuguese."

"_Prazer em te conhecer colega alto-falante de uma língua bonita."_

Green eyes widened, she was impressed. "_É bom falar com alguém que pode entender o que estou dizendo." _

Bonnie wasn't one to ramble on and apparently neither was Ivan as they both lapsed into a slightly awkward silence.

He turned to face her again, "This may sound like I'm trying to come on to you and I'm not, I promise," he laughed self-deprecatingly. Bonnie offered a tiny smile, "But your eyes remind me of the Aurora Borealis that's commonplace during the winter in Iceland."

"That's," the flummoxed woman scratched the back of her neck. A nervous tick of hers. "That's a nice thing to say," she cleared her throat. "I've always wanted to see the Northern Lights. I've just always lived too far south obviously."

"Oh, but I love the south, too. From Virginia to Argentina," he smiled.

Bonnie couldn't help but grin, too at the mention of her home state.

An unusual feeling ignited within Bonnie that she could only describe as butterflies. Everything within her was screaming to walk away and go find her husband, but just sharing this brief impartation with Ivan reminded her of what it felt like to have an actual conversation with someone. Someone who wasn't measuring her up to pass some social hierarchy test, or trying to get into her head and tap dance on her insecurities.

"If I'm stepping out of my bounds please let me know, but would you like to check out some of the other exhibits with me? I know viewing art doesn't require having a partner but it can make the experience more…enhanced, I guess," Ivan shrugged looking rueful.

Bonnie knew she should refuse, but with Damon away and apparently in no rush to see to her, she figured there wouldn't be any harm in making a temporary friend.

"I'd like that very much," she said, meaning it.

Ivan beamed and stretched out his arm. Bonnie reluctantly took it and was led away.

* * *

Balancing on a scale of drunkenness and sobriety, Damon tipped on either side at any given moment. Sober enough to hold a conversation, but tipsy enough to forget it once the person walked away. The champagne in his hand was going flat and turning lukewarm but that didn't stop him from taking leisurely sips from it. His patience level for these things never extended beyond its requisite hour and fifteen minutes and he was itching to go home. But since he was a contributor, his name engraved on a nice bronze plague and everything, he had to loiter around for a little while longer.

Women approached him and flirted. Engaged him in conversation and deliberately touched his arm, shoulder, or chest. One had even been bold enough to pat his ass. Again it was the norm in his world, but annoyed him nonetheless. Mainly because his little wife was nowhere around to see it.

Damon wondered around aimlessly almost restlessly moving from one portrait, original painting, or sculpture to another. Everything was beginning to bleed together that after a while objects were nothing more than globs of paint and glitter thrown together.

How he found himself in a darkened room featuring interactive art Damon didn't question it. Merely watched dots of multi-colored light make pretty shapes on a black felt wall.

The unmistakable tap of heels along the hardwood floor vaguely caught his attention, but he didn't look to see who the person was. Damon finished off his champagne and dangled the empty glass from his fingertips.

Two arms wrapped around his body, a nice set of plump breasts pressed into his back, but that wasn't what made him stiffen. It was the cloying scent of the perfume of his unwanted companion that triggered the identity of the person.

"Are you following me now?"

"You would like that wouldn't you?" one bronze hand began to head south, fingers brushed his belt buckle but it was impeded on its journey.

The woman let out a hiss when Damon applied pressure to the delicate bones and nerves under her skin.

She snatched her hand away and took exactly three steps to stand in front of him.

If there were ever a time Damon should have used discretion on who he bedded, sleeping with his stepmother was one of those times. How he wished he could take back that night because the way Elise saw it, it was her leverage over him. A ploy to bend him to do her will, her bidding.

It didn't matter that she looked like she walked straight out of a Bollywood movie, or that she had a perfect body, or understood the parameters of being cutthroat. He had, maybe unconsciously lusted after her for a while, but Damon had chalked that up to the fact there were things about Elise El Khouri that reminded him of Tatia. Transference of feelings and all that jazz.

Damon would not take the blame for putting ideas into her head that they could run away with his father's millions, fuck all day and night, and make their own dynasty. Their one night together had been the resort of him having a headache and nothing more.

She smiled up at him with those blood red lips that said all sorts of nasty things that inconsequentially made him bust one of the biggest nuts of his life. Her big doe eyes glinted even in the near pitch darkness of the room. Her hair, her crowning glory let off some aroma that made Damon think of caramelized apples.

His jaw ticked and he told his feet to move but they were glued to the floor.

Elise ran a single finger along his shoulder, up his neck, and traced his jawline. "You still want me so I don't know why you're trying to fight it."

Damon's laugh sounded weak to his own ears. He didn't want anything to do with Elise. "I'm married so that kind of indicates I only want one woman."

Now it was Elise's turn to laugh. Only hers sounded cruel like a dictator taking pleasure in watching his enemy kill himself. That made an uncomfortable shiver crawl down Damon's spine.

"Yes and she is beautiful, I'll give you that much, Damon. But anyone with eyes can see you two are doing nothing more than living a lie. Playing house. You're no more devoted to her than she is to you."

"You don't know _what _you're talking about," Damon argued while his hand balled into a tight fist.

Elise laughed once more and stepped closer to Damon, so close that the tip of her nose brushed the bottom of his chin.

"I watched her carefully tonight-,"

Damon bit out, "You stay _away _from her."

His comment was ignored as Elise prattled onward, "…putting on airs like a good little pretender. Yet...," she paused for effect, "when this handsome gentleman approached her she seemed to light up. Like no one had ever paid her any attention a day in her life until he came around. It was _very _endearing. Poor thing seemed starved. So that made me wonder… is it safe to assume you two have an open marriage but only one of you is allowed to dabble elsewhere?"

The veil dropped quickly over Damon's face that it caused Elise to take a step back. She had seen that look, was familiar with that look and its implications because Giuseppe had done it enough in his final days. It meant you had exactly two seconds to disappear or the consequences would be brutal.

Gutturally Damon replied, "I need to go find my wife."

It was a wonder there wasn't a trail of smoke following after Damon's speedy exit from the room.

* * *

The center had three levels and the last time Damon saw his wife had been in the mezzanine. There were far too many bodies milling about making it impossible to track her, find her. Still that didn't deter the man from plowing through the crowd earning himself grunts of disapproval or insults being lobbed at his back.

Damon struck out on finding Bonnie on the second floor. Jutting into each and every little room only hovering long enough to catalogue the faces he could make out. If he weren't a little on the intoxicated side he could stop long enough to remember exactly what his wife had been wearing. But as soon as an image formed in his brain it leaked out like sand in an hourglass.

By the time he made it to the third level his heart froze.

There his wife stood apparently flirting with a man that gave off this presence that he definitely didn't like. But instead of rushing over to rip his wife away, he watched, observed. Damon didn't think it was possible for Bonnie to smile that hugely or brightly or that she could radiate and glow as if she consumed the sun and it shined through her skin. She looked…happy. A far cry from how she was when they were together.

The contents in Damon's stomach sloshed together, heat encompassed him, and bile rose. That cloying scent of perfume snuck up behind him once more. Elise had materialized next to him.

Bonnie finally sensed his presence and looked his way, her smile fading, her demeanor changing, her glow suppressing.

Elise touched Damon on the arm, leaned up on her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth leaving a lipstick stain behind. "You're not going to get out of this unscathed, Damon. Remember that."

The fucking cougar waved her fingers at Bonnie and floated off to ruin more lives, Damon supposed. During the whole territorial display as Damon mentally referred to what just happened, he never once stopped glowering at his marital better half.

Bonnie's brows knitted together but Damon had no idea what she may have been thinking. He did, however, snap out of it when the giraffe hovering too close to his wife touched her on the elbow, and leaned down to speak into her ear.

But Bonnie barely even heard Ivan ask if she were all right. She didn't know who that woman was or why she kissed Damon, or why she even waved at her. All she did know was she didn't like what she saw nor how it made it her feel.

Damon crossed the room in two strides it seemed though there was a good thirty feet of space between him and Bonnie. He didn't even look at the guy before grabbing his wife by the hand and tugging her after him.

His tone brokered no argument, "We're leaving."

"Who was that woman?" Bonnie ignored his command.

"Not important. Let's go," he pulled Bonnie after him.

She fought to keep up, lifting the hem of her dress so she wouldn't trip on it. "And before we do you might want to wipe that lipstick stain off."

They had only made it to the threshold when Damon stopped and wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. The twosome locked eyes and what Damon read in Bonnie's was hurt and disappointment.

"Bonnie are you all right? Should I get security?" Ivan asked as he sized Damon up.

"_She's my wife_," the perturbed man snapped angrily.

Ivan didn't cower from the heat beaming from Damon's eyes and met the man with his own cross expression.

Inwardly, Bonnie sighed. "I have go, Ivan. It was nice meeting…"

The rest of her words were cut off as Damon propelled her out of the room and eventually out of the center.

As soon as they were settled in the limo, Bonnie turned to face her husband. "Who was that woman that kissed you on the mouth, Damon?"

"She didn't kiss me on the mouth."

"She came close enough."

"Like I said she's not important, Bonnie."

The woman in question snorted. "You're unbelievable. You get bent out of shape if I so much as say hello to another man, but I'm expected to turn a blind eye to the fact a woman I've never seen before thought it was perfectly okay to kiss my husband?"

Irritably, Damon said, "Don't act like you give a damn all of a sudden if a woman makes a pass at me." Under his breath he said, "If only you know the amount of times women throw themselves at me I wouldn't get to leave the house."

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

Bonnie groaned in aggravation and threw her hands in the air. She questioned why did she care if she had plans to leave her husband? Maybe it was the principle of everything. Maybe it was the traditionalist in Bonnie, but until they were no longer married they would uphold their vows. If she had a say.

Moodily the couple rode out the rest of the excursion in cold silence. Before they made it home, Damon's cell rung and he had a brusque conversation with his assistant.

"Looks like we'll getting a much needed vacation from one another," Damon informed and pocketed his phone.

"What do you mean?" Bonnie asked blandly.

"I'll be gone for two weeks cleaning up a mess made at one of the plants in Tokyo."

Honestly that was the best news Bonnie had heard all night. Two weeks without Damon sulking around was a vacation indeed, and enough time for Bonnie to get the ball rolling on her annulment.

Damon swung his head in Bonnie's direction. "Try not to miss me too much."

"Don't worry, I won't."

Chapter end.

**A/N: I will say that Ivan Skarsgaard (and I picture Alexander Skarsgard as this character) will be making another appearance in this story, so he's not completely random. I love the idea of contrasts and I say that to say most new characters are often met with distrust and opposition, which most of the time they should be. Elise, clearly can't be trusted. But the question remains…is Damon affected by her or irritated by her and exactly how will this affect things with Bonnie who's ready to kick him to the curb? I want to speed things along, but at the same time take my time. The conundrum. Let me know what you think. Thanks so much for reading!**

**Translations:** **"Nice to meet you, fellow speaker of a beautiful language."**

**Yes it is nice to talk to someone who can understand what I'm saying."**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Hello Bamonators! Thank you all for the reviews and continued support! You guys rock!

**Pairings: **Bamon (main), Klonnie (friendship), others when needed

**Rating: *This chapter features MA material not suitable for those under 17* So read at your own risk.**

**Disclaimer: **Characters belong to TVD (other than my OC's). I own the plot. Copyright infringement is not intended.

* * *

For every step forward he took, she matched him by stepping back.

"You're not going to miss me?"

"Not even a little bit."

"Nothing about me will keep you up at night and pine for me?"

"Why would I pine over something that won't go away?"

Unbeknownst to the woman her gown was being unzipped and landed in a pool of fabric around her feet. The draft she felt was hardly worth mentioning because the steam rising along her limbs compliments of his heated gaze cancelled out the chill of the room.

Those same fingers with the dexterity of a spider, crawled their way upward, swooped around her shoulders, and then fisted themselves in her hair.

Stabbing pain made her give a little cry of discomfort. Her teeth gritted together as her head was wrenched backwards. She searched for mercy but gave up the rescue when there was none to be found in those mercurial orbs of his. Regardless of the moonlight that lit up their bedroom his canvas was blank and the painter lost his muse.

Damon lowered his head. He stopped before taking her lips, hovering slightly over her parted mouth. "You're such a pretty little liar."

"No better than you," Bonnie rebutted.

He saw no lies in her words. She may not want to yield to what he hoped was fact, but Damon had his ways of getting the truth out of his wife.

Submission held its own flavor and he typically found hers within the deep trenches of her body. The mind and body were unique beings not always operating symbiotically, but sometimes independently. The body may want something the mind refused to accept or vice versa. Beneath the artificial sweetener that permeated her skin, Damon scented her arousal.

Desire crested and overflowed like an unattended pot of boiling water. His fingers crocheted deeper into the strands of Bonnie's hair, but he wasn't exactly pulling at the roots. He lightly began to massage her scalp.

"If I said I wasn't in the mood?" Bonnie took a chance and brought up a not-so-hypothetical question.

Maundering digits disappeared from her web of hair, and then her thighs were burning as Damon slapped his hands to her hips, bent at the knees, and lifted Bonnie clean off the floor.

Automatically her legs wrapped around his shoulders and her back was descending to the mattress.

Bonnie bounced, pushed the hair that fell into her eyes away as Damon climbed up her physique.

"Then it would be my job to get you there," Damon replied.

Cold lips kissed her rib; then another open-mouth peck was dropped just an inch above her navel. Damon lifted his head gifting his wife with that smirk that could mean: "Nice to meet you" or "I'm about to kill you". She should have been nervous but the reason why her bones were rattling had nothing to do with Damon turning violent, and everything to do with him getting her so worked up an abandoning her from reaching true nirvana. He had done it before. Taking his pleasure and leaving her to salvage her own.

Heading north Damon loomed over Bonnie in the plank yoga pose, his knuckles driving deep into the mattress.

"Take your bra and panties off. You're sleeping naked tonight."

"If I don't?"

Damon kissed his stubborn consort on the neck. "Do you really want to find out," he whispered in her ear.

Like a poltergeist being called to the light, Damon vanished from the bed and headed toward the bathroom.

After shutting himself in, he kicked off his shoes, stepped up to the sink, and blindly turned the water on. Damon had never been any good at handling blasts from his past and seeing Elise tonight shook him up more than he cared to acknowledge it did. But the bitch knew what she was doing kicking a hornets nest by leaving her signature calling card right on the edge of his mouth and doing so in the presence of his wife.

Bonnie's mild display of jealousy almost made running into Elise worth it.

Too many worlds were colliding at once leaving him only a sliver of escape. Problems at work were mounting leaving Damon no choice but to confer with his personal lawyers to go over his options. Keeping Bonnie in the dark wasn't terribly hard. He handled the finances of their household, deposited money into her account so she really had no idea what their books actually looked like.

If he couldn't close this deal, if things in Tokyo were far worse than what his engineers, accountants, and lawyers were forecasting, he was about to be in more red than a dormitory of women on their cycle.

Scooping up water into the palms of his hands, Damon splashed his face. He did it again and didn't stop until his entire head was drenched along with the back of his neck, wetting the collar of his shirt.

He cricked the mandibles in his neck and then stripped.

When he left the bathroom, Bonnie was already under the covers. On the floor was evidence that his request had been carried out.

In less than five seconds Damon climbed into bed and spooned his wife. His erection nudged her right between the ass, and though he wanted nothing more than to round all bases and slide into home, he resisted.

Bonnie didn't move or make a sound. She merely waited to see what would come next. Damon in many ways was predictable, but that predictably could mutate into extemporaneity without warning. He was so unlike anyone she had ever met. A true chameleon, a wolf in lion's clothing.

_Remember that you really don't like him, _her subconscious fretted around making room for her courage and ethics to pay a visit.

Another voice, stronger and more voluminous kicked in the door and made itself known. Lust in its rapacious cloak filled up the doorway and said, _You don't have to like him to fuck him. _

No, Bonnie supposed not but it at least made things much more enjoyable. Not to say it wasn't already. She had dreams many little girls had growing up about being with someone she was madly in love with who possessed a kind spirit. Her husband didn't fit the ubiquitous prince charming mold. Damon was in a mold she couldn't crack.

In the early days of their marriage she had been intrigued by the task of cracking Damon. Of unfurling what was inside his head and seeing if a heart actually did beat in his chest. But, the harder she tired, the more barriers he erected until there was only a vicious guard dog on duty that bore a resemblance to the man resting behind her.

His hands sliding along the contour of her shape dismantled her musings. When those deft little fingers got to breasts and caressed them, Bonnie sunk her teeth into her lip. Her breasts were her weakness and the fastest way to get her in the mood.

Damon wasn't playing fair.

He avoided contact with her areolas which were shriveling at the mere thought of stimulation. Her nipples stretched and puckered waiting for the slightest little flick, tug, or pull.

"You love to resist me, don't you?" Damon said. "You resist and it only makes me want you more."

"Then that clearly makes you a misogynist since you have no respect for my wishes. I'm not in the mood."

"Really?" the skepticism was heavy in his voice. "Let me check."

_Oh, no_ Bonnie clamped her legs closer together but it did nothing to impede Damon from being able to slide his hands between them. His finger divided her labia and found her slick and sweltering hot.

His dick jumped and got rock hard.

He didn't tease her for very long. A few strokes, a dip of his middle finger into her tunnel and he was retreating, leaving a trail of her lubrication behind that wet her lower abdomen.

Damon brought his soaked digit to his mouth and lewdly sucked it dry. "I think I just proved my point."

"Just because I'm wet doesn't mean I want you."

"Oh contraire I think that's exactly what it means."

Bonnie shuffled around until she lied on her back. Her brain pleaded with her not to say this. "How can you be so sure it's _you _I'm even thinking about while you fondle me?"

Her words caused the blood in his body to redirect from his engorged cock to his cranium. The fingers holding her by the hip burrowed deeper.

"If that's the case," Damon murmured deceptively calmly, "then I'm going to take great joy in _fucking_ you until every man you come across you'll think is me. Go to sleep."

The coldness in his voice was razor sharp and made her tremor.

He rolled away from her and Bonnie still refused to release the breath she had been holding.

* * *

She got absolutely no sleep. Anytime Bonnie felt herself nodding off she'd snap awake. She wanted to be ready for when Damon would launch his counterstrike, and make her eat the words that barely digested prior to her purging them.

He slept soundly, snoring even, and kept to his side of the bed. They weren't big on cuddling, but every once and a while a wayward body part would brush up against the other, probably the only harmless touches they ever shared.

The birds were gearing up for their praise and worship and Bonnie was exhausted. Damon would be up soon to prepare for his trip to Tokyo, and for two weeks she would be able to stretch her legs and shred her skin of bondage. That was the only thing which gave her comfort and she latched on. After hours of rebelling she permitted herself to go to sleep.

Bonnie didn't know how long she may have been prancing around in la-la land before the sucking motion of an eager mouth awakened her.

She gasped and tried to sit up but couldn't. Damon was weighing her down and his mouth had latched on to an impossibly erect nipple. Any other woman would have been tallying up her Easter eggs to be roused in such a fashion. Bonnie had been a minority leader her entire life so being taken advantage of in sleep even by her husband kicked up her adrenaline to fight.

A moan and a sigh left her lips without clearance—regrettably. Her legs parted like the Red Sea making more room for Damon to slither his way between them.

Her husband switched over to her right nipple, salving it, giving the protruding nub its own blow job. He lost his fingers to her weeping vagina that were making interesting suctioning sounds and definitely enticed him to make a trade.

The second Bonnie was prepared to receive his missile, Damon kicked the covers away and flipped his wife on her stomach. He yanked her hips up, lubed the reddish-purple head of his cock and breached his way inside.

"_Maudire," _Bonnie moaned in French.

Hearing that declaration spurred her husband on. Damon was Italian but didn't really speak the language, but knew a couple of phrases and added his own sentiment.

"_Fottermi bambina."_

Damon set a deliberate pace so Bonnie could feel herself stretching from opening to her cervix. She fit around him like a glove, squeezing and lathered his shaft with tangy juices. Right when Bonnie got comfortable with his established rhythm he increased his speed, thighs slapping into her ass. It jiggled and Damon stared down as he saw himself appear and disappear within those caramel globes.

Bonnie yelped when his palm met with her ass taping Morse code as he rode her from the back. Damon rubbed the sting away.

Sweat leaked from their pores, their heightened breath rushed out in interchangeable pants. Whenever Damon exhaled, Bonnie inhaled. She reached behind her and clamped her hand around his wrist for leverage while he held her tightly by the hips. She tossed her head back, hair flying and smacking her in the face as she looked over her shoulder. Green orbs narrowed in calculation.

Pulling away which took some doing, Bonnie rolled over, slapped Damon clear across the face, and pushed him on his back.

A garbled mix of fury and surprise ransacked his face, but Damon didn't have time to make a single complaint because Bonnie mounted him, reared forward and buried her teeth around his nipple.

He hollered to high heaven, jutted up his hips meeting every single one of Bonnie's downward strokes.

He couldn't see but the side of his face she struck was bright red. Her teeth broke the skin around his nipple and left behind small, crescent shaped abrasions.

She marked him.

Damon growled at the pain and then moaned when Bonnie's cool tongue eased the fire that spread across his pectoral.

This was probably the most violent she had ever been and that should have worried him. Yet unfortunately or maybe fortunately for him it only made Damon that much stiffer down below. So stiff he was certain someone could hang weights on the shaft of his rod, and it wouldn't budge.

Rocking her hips back and forth Bonnie was going to get hers, Damon be damned. She held him down by the neck, her tiny fingers burrowing into his two major arteries. Maybe she wanted to stop his blood flow to the point he lost consciousness. Bonnie watched in grim satisfaction when his eyes took a spin to the back of his head. She lessened the pressure, arched her back, placing her hands flat on the mattress, opened her legs wider giving her husband an obstructed view of her glistening sex.

She was wild and uninhibited like a succubus looking to drain him of his life force. Damon was right on the cusp of willfully relinquishing his rights, and giving Bonnie total control over every single facet of his being. The way her inner muscles clamped down on him he likened it to being on lockdown in solitary confinement.

"I'm about to…" Bonnie began her mantra.

"I know," and the words weren't spoken with their usual smugness just an easily foreseeable observation.

He could feel his end coming, too. His balls were tightening, heat rising from his testicles and charging right down his urethra. He was convinced Bonnie was trying to bust a vein in his dick with the way she rode him.

"Come on me," Damon urged. "I want you to come on my face."

Was he crazy? Bonnie couldn't move. Not now. Not when she was so close to skyrocketing to the moon.

She didn't have a choice as Damon literally stopped moving and picked her up. He deposited his wife right on his face and Bonnie, a little stunned by the sudden change in position, grabbed on to the headboard and twerked on her husband's tongue while he jacked himself to completion. His warm cum splashed his stomach and even landed on his feet.

Jubilant cries to several deities in a long forgotten pantheon reached the rafters in the attic and down to the floorboards of the basement.

Bonnie lost all feeling from the neck down and accidentally smothered Damon's face who mumbled incoherent words.

Energy she did not possessed assisted Bonnie in swinging on leg over Damon's body. She sank next to him, panting, and seeing life on an alien planet.

They stared at one another almost in wonder, and it transported Bonnie back to their wedding night.

* * *

_Vikingsholm was a thirty-eight room shore mansion located on Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe, California. Damon had pulled the necessary strings to rent the entire place for their quickie five-day honeymoon after saying their nuptials in the backyard of a friend's house in the Hollywood Hills._

_Bonnie had yet to disclose the rudimentary knowledge of her sexual history bearing there was none for her to disclose. Other than letting her high school boyfriend finger her, Bonnie had remained chaste._

_She had undergone palpitations on the drive to Lake Tahoe; the palms of her hands had turned into little swimming pools. Would it be possible for her to fake a headache to get out of consummating her marriage—staring at her husband, and her head still spun over the fact she was now married, but staring at her husband and seeing that giddy expression on his face dampened her spirits even more._

_There wouldn't be an excuse outside of death that could get her out of tonight._

_Bonnie had wondered behind Damon and the manager of the estate who pointed out odds and ends of the estate that failed to implant in her memory. They were left the keys, a parting goodbye filled with innuendo, and left to their own devices._

_Damon, if he picked up on how scared out of her damn mind she was, he didn't bring it up. He led to the way to their bedroom, their luggage already waiting for them._

_The room was decorated in grays and gunmetal blues, but hardly any of it registered with Bonnie since her gaze was locked on the bed._

_It was enormous and littered with blood red rose petals. Her stomach and bowels decided they both needed to release and she shot to the bathroom in a flurry._

_Nothing happened. Bonnie stood hunched over the porcelain commode waiting for the bile that tickled the back of her throat to show itself._

_Damon had knocked on the door and asked if she were all right. Slowly, Bonnie left the confines of the bathroom and wanted to run right back in because Damon had lost his shirt and had been in the middle of taking off his pants._

_She couldn't deny his looks even if she were blind. Questions and her own insecurities plagued her because Bonnie knew she wouldn't measure up. Their marriage was based on a sham and this night would end in one as well._

_He had taken her gently by the hand and led her over to the foot of the bed. His hands cupped and caressed her face. His tenderness relaxed Bonnie somewhat. But when he took her hands and led them on an exploration of his chest and down past his belt. Damon locked her fingers around his erection, and Bonnie fought valiantly not to snatch her hand away._

_Damon's dick had been the first she ever touched. The length and size made her distress shoot up even more. He moaned and then greedily devoured her mouth leaving her no chance of catching a breath. Bonnie had put the brakes on everything the minute her dress became a thing of the past and Damon boldly stuck a finger inside her semi-wet folds._

_Bonnie had ruthlessly pulled her mouth away and blurted, "I'm a virgin!"_

_Damon didn't stagger away in blinding shock as she pictured him doing. He was shocked—yes. To Bonnie's surprise he handled the daunting information with ease and vowed to be gentle._

_And he had been. Preparing her body to accept the package he had waited a whooping three months to share._

_Bonnie did have an orgasm that night. Not through penetration, but by the voracity of her husband's mouth and fingers. Embarrassment flushed her skin, but she couldn't deny she enjoyed his cunnilingus._

_Once Damon had reached his climax, they laid side by side openly appraising one another. And it was in that moment Bonnie had never felt closer to anyone in her whole life. She couldn't overtly name the feelings rising from the depths of her heart, it seemed. Bonnie could only say she had never felt this way before. For the first time in her life she felt she found someplace where she truly belonged._

* * *

Those emotions weren't there in the present as Bonnie languished in afterglow. She had given so many pieces of herself to Damon. Sometimes willfully, other times out of necessity, and then more often than not grudgingly. All she had left was a facsimile of her old self.

Deep down, Bonnie wanted to love her husband. Only, he was too concerned with breaking her.

The blinds, set on a timer, began to part allowing the full power of sunlight to flood the room. Using that as her excuse, Bonnie sat up. The blood rushed straight to the top of her skull and white dots formed and burst before her eyes.

"Bonnie?"

"You have shower and get packed up for your trip. Harlow will be on her way up here," Bonnie stared at Damon over her shoulder. "Do you really want to explain why you have semen on your toes?"

Sitting up, wild case of bedhead, Damon snorted. "I pay her enough not to notice shit like that. Look we…"

A knock sounded on the door.

Bonnie planted her feet on the carpet and made her way to the bathroom. "Tokyo awaits you, Mr. Salvatore. Don't keep her waiting."

* * *

Lips lingered and lingered until an impatient personal assistant sighed repugnantly.

"Mr. Salvatore…?" Harlow Jones resisted tapping her foot on the cement outside of the house.

Pulling away from temptation formed in the likeness of Cupid's bow, Damon ceased making out with his wife. He smirked and then whipped his head at his assistant who paled and demurely dropped her eyes to her feet.

He turned back to face Bonnie. "Don't burn the house down while I'm gone."

His ribbing was teasing but nonetheless irritating. "And waste the gasoline without you in it," she held back from saying but waved. She closed the door the second Damon entered the town car that would take him to the air field where he would board the company's G4.

Running back upstairs, Bonnie twisted her hair into a knot, turned on the James Brown and pulled out her golf attire.

Damon had a membership at an exclusive club in Malibu, and because they were married that membership extended to her. The first time Damon took her out to the green, Bonnie just knew she'd be bored beyond death. In actuality, the married woman enjoyed the sport and learned she was actually better at it than her husband.

Bonnie called ahead to let them know she was coming, and to have a room ready at the carriage house in the event she decided to stay overnight.

Tokenism was profoundly rooted in this place. The number of members who weren't servers of the rich and privilege was hilariously small, but this country club proclaimed it was one of the more inclusive and progressive in the entire nation.

Donned in a pair of white shorts, pink and green striped Polo, her cleats, and hat, Bonnie entered the dining room. She had skipped breakfast so she'd have more time to get here and now she was starving.

Bonnie was welcomed warmly by the staff that was momentarily relieved to see another brown face in the crowd. Plus, she had a reputation of being a very generous tipper.

She eyed the choices at the buffet and decided to order something fresh from the kitchen.

A waiter expeditiously popped up at her side wearing a customary uniform that inwardly made Bonnie shake her head. She listened patiently as the server ran through the brunch and early lunch specials. Bonnie declined, ordered a mimosa and then said she needed a few minutes to look over the menu.

Bonnie had a mind to call her cousin and see if Jelena would be heading out to the Playground—a nightclub, tonight after the game. Just as she sat out to do so she felt someone walking in her direction, and when she looked up she was surprised.

"Ms. Bennett so it would appear we meet again."

"I guess so, Mr. Mikaelson."

"Dining alone?"

"For now," Bonnie replied and sat the menu aside.

"Would you care for some company?"

"You're here alone?"

Klaus braced his hands on the back of the unoccupied chair across the table from Bonnie. "As with most things in my life…I do them alone. I don't want to be a bother if it's an imposition."

"Well, you're here and I'm here. Why not break bread?"

Klaus penned her with a skeptical look. "You sure?"

"What can happen over a meal, Klaus?"

He grinned then. "Lots of things."

As the two word sparred, EliseEl Khouri made herself quite comfortable on a stool at the bar. She extracted her phone, placed it strategically on the bar top and hit the record button.

A bartender approached and asked her what she would like to drink.

"Bourbon…neat."—The bartender nodded and stepped away to fix her beverage.—"It's my lover's favorite drink."

To be continued…

**A/N: **I had intended there to be more to this chapter, but Bamon just demanded the necessary time to say 'goodbye' before Damon leaves for Tokyo. Just a bit of background on Vikingsholm. It's a real place, but it's a historical site and only tours are given. It's not a resort or hotel. So I took a bit of creative license and made it so Damon could reserve it for his and Bonne's honeymoon. They appear to be on good terms, but you know with those two nothing is ever as it seems. Klaus has made an appearance. I can't guarantee that he'll be a frequent guest star, but he will appear when needed. And that Elise…I'll just let you guys have at it. Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Okay, I pretty much fell off the grid and left you all hanging. My deepest apologies. I kind of hit a wall with my writing in this story, but I'm back and I'm so very, very grateful for the wonderful reviews and adding to your lists! Thank you so very much, everyone!

**Pairings: **In this chapter Bonnie/Klaus (as friends). New characters make special appearances. Friend or foe is the question.

**Rating: **Leans more toward hard PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I disclaim ownership of propriety characters for they belong to their respective owners LJ Smith/CW/or VH1. All original characters belong to me. The plot is mine as well.

* * *

Fighting temptation was one of her specialties. In fact, when it came to temptation of any kind it gave Bonnie a wide berth. She would window shop at best and keep the program rolling, but it did not mean she had never been tempted to bluff, to dabble, pull hidden strings so that something might work in her favor.

And even while thinking this of herself she knew it to be false—artifice. She was a living being with hot red blood pumping through her veins, not iced water. There were things she wanted, things she coveted, things she possessed she wish she didn't have. But Bonnie wouldn't label herself as being greedy. Maybe a little unappreciative; however, her silence could only be purchased for so long.

But thinking back on temptation, Bonnie had engaged in a cat and mouse game with it. She sat shoulder to shoulder with Niklaus Mikaelson, who according to him was a gregarious businessman still looking to make his plunge. To hear others tell it he was arduous, unforgiving, a hard ass in a torrid love affair with Mexican tequila. But simply he was a man who could wax poetic on the pros of eating prawn in or out of season, and swore his allegiance to all things Wynton Marsalis.

Earlier in the day after breaking bread, they played golf, drank, laughed and talked before playing more golf. They had engaged in a round of twenty questions getting the major stats out of the way. School, college, where you grew up, favorite past time, your OTP. Their's was an easy connection born on the back of not really having a lot of people to talk to who listened. Bonnie's day had been lovely, her first normal day in months, and she hadn't wanted it to come to an end.

Not even after her awkward encounter with that woman she saw kissing her husband at the center opening night before last.

_Seeing the unknown woman hadn't been a joy. It became a chore to have to actually exchange niceties with someone who knew her husband to which he guarded her identity as if it were top secret. Bonnie couldn't help but feel the woman who introduced herself as Elise El Khouri had been laughing at her despite the smile on her face that never stretched from ear-to-ear. She just didn't get any good intentions from the older woman._

_Yet that didn't stop her from shaking Elise's hand. Bonnie's opinion about the woman didn't alter or shift not even after the disclosure of her being Giuseppe Salvatore's bereaved widow. No. No stepmother would ever kiss her former stepson the way Elise nearly gobbled Damon's mouth._

"_It's nice to meet the woman who managed to coax Damon into retiring his playboy card," Elise drew a measured eye over Bonnie and flipped a strand of ebony hair over her shoulder. "So what's your secret?"_

_Bonnie snorted softly under her breath. "I don't have a secret. Damon was ready to settle down and I guess I'm the lucky woman."_

_She could have phrased that better, but no one needed to know the fine intricacies of her relationship with Damon. Theirs was a "don't fucking ask" arrangement that for now was working._

_Elise laughed and it sounded forced. "I'm not terribly surprised by Damon suddenly taking a torch to his little black book, and getting married. You are beautiful and you're probably smart, too."_

_An insult cloaked as a compliment, Bonnie was no novice in that department. She said nothing, allowing the words "fuck you" be broadcast via the narrowing of her eyes._

_Elise stepped closer to Bonnie. "I wanted to introduce myself the night of the gala but…I decided against it…"_

"_Why did you?" Bonnie interrupted the script. She knew this moment, this happenstance encounter was being scripted. For whose benefit remained the unanswered question. "Why wouldn't you want to meet your former stepson's wife? Judging from the kiss you laid on my husband you two were close."_

_This time a saucy smile spread across Elise's smug face. "Damon doesn't let a lot of people into his inner circle, but I was one of the fortunate few. I was married to his father, yes, but that didn't grant me automatic admission. It took time. There're few people Damon trusts inherently, and to know he's placed his trust in you is…an indescribable feeling. But then you already know that, right?"_

_The query was meant to be an unforeseen road hump. In a nutshell, Bonnie deduced that Elise was gloating in her own underhanded way about Damon trusting her while shunning his own spouse. It could be true it could be false, but Bonnie would never forget the expression on Damon's face at the event, and it wasn't one of fondness where his former stepmother was concerned. _

"_Of course," Bonnie played along. "Damon trusts me in all things."_

"_Right," skepticism dripped from the word like a wound. _

_The area under the collar of Bonnie's shirt began to grow hot. She wanted this pointless meeting to adjourn. _

_Elise snatched up her martini glass and drained the contents. "So where is that wayward son of mine?"_

"_Away on business."_

"_As usual. Don't know why I asked. On top of his dashing good looks he's intellectually gifted, and has a nose for commerce that rivaled Giuseppe's. Maybe that's why they clashed so much," Elise's smile and tone of voice turned wistful. _

_Toward heaven was where viridian eyes climbed. The last thing Bonnie wanted to spoil her day was listening to anyone sing Damon's praises. But not even she could deny her curiosity about the dynamic that surrounded her husband and his father. Damon didn't talk much about his family. Bonnie never bothered to ask. She figured the less she knew the less inclined she'd be to care about those Damon loved. Extended families and all that sometimes rarely blended peacefully together to make an edible dish. _

"_I don't mean to be rude," Bonnie made a show of checking the time on her watch. "I do have a game I need to be getting to. It was…nice to meet you, Ms. El Khouri."_

"_I still go by Mrs. Salvatore."_

_Good for you, Bonnie had been tempted to say. _

_Elise reached for her clutch and extracted a card to which she handed over to Bonnie who accepted it without looking at it. _

"_We should meet up later and have lunch. Get to know each other better. I know it would make Damon happy," Elise petitioned._

_And Bonnie was sure it would do quite the opposite. "We'll see," she offered in a compromise. _

_Elise had floated away garnering admirers on her way to the exit. _

Bonnie didn't know what to make of her exchange with Elise other than it brokered a lot of questions she may never receive an answer to. She had a knee jerk reaction to call Damon and inform him of "bumping into" his former stepmother just to gauge his response. If he got mad then that meant something. If he blew it off that could mean something as well. He didn't like being out of the loop in situations where he had no control.

If Elise was playing a game they'd find out soon enough, and taking into account her own litany of problems, Bonnie would tuck that one on the back burner for now. The prize was stripping herself out of Damon's life and the trappings that came along with it. Not involving herself into some pissing contest over a man she did not really love.

Decoding Elise's intentions was nearly killing Bonnie's buzz. When she blinked back to the present she caught her cousin Jelena eyeing her almost disdainfully, but she soon returned her attention to her boyfriend Terrance and nibbled his lips.

While Bonnie stood on the eighteenth hole, she had received a phone call from Jelena telling her she had no choice, she would be sweating out her perm with her tonight at The Playground. Bonnie had relayed that information to Klaus and impulsively asked if he wanted to tag along. He agreed.

The Playground was full of people Damon wouldn't allow Bonnie to associate with in his absence. Power hungry egomaniacs, half -dressed social climbers, inebriated basketball players galore paraded around in this smoky club located on the top floor of the LA Devils Center. This was one of many locations where the entitled gathered and congratulated one another on being entitled.

Bonnie swung her gaze over to Klaus who puffed on a cigar. He made rings of smoke that Bonnie stuck a manicured finger through and giggled. She detested smoking and smokers, but the cigar Klaus smoked gave off a pleasant vanilla scent. It wasn't so bothersome. The club did have a no smoking policy erected. Klaus didn't care.

He held out the stogie toward her. She declined with a shake of her head, and continued to sip her glass of Moet.

"Still thinking about that wench from the country club?" Klaus hit the nail right on the head.

"What gave it away?"

Using the tip of his forefinger, he lightly dragged it over her furrowed brow. He smirked at her. "A dimple forms here when you're ruminating about something."

"You think you know me so well after one round of golf and too much drinking?"

"I study people, Bonnie. More as a hobby than anything else. So I know when someone is thinking about something unpleasant they rather not think about but can't seem to help themselves. Plus…" he hesitated in saying more.

"Plus what?" Bonnie sat up a little straighter against the padded booth.

"Plus Elise has that kind of numbing effect on people."

"You know Elise?!" Bonnie shouted far louder than she intended to drawing stares in the cornered off VIP area.

Sagely, Klaus nodded his head. "I've met her at least twice and both encounters were certainly memorable for their own reasons."

"What can you tell me about her?" Bonnie hoped she hadn't sounded too eager.

"What did she tell you about herself?" Klaus countered and stubbed out the cigar.

Bonnie licked her lip and thought back to her conversation with the woman who still wanted to be called _Mrs. Salvatore_. "That she was married to Damon's father and she and Damon, according to her are close."

Klaus blocked his leer from being seen by taking a sip of his drink. He had no definitive proof of anything, and like he said, he studied people.

The two times he socialized with Elise had been at her wedding reception and then at the repast for the late Giuseppe Salvatore. At both occasions, Elise had carried herself accordingly. She had been the blushing bride, never allowed five minutes to pass without dumping affection on her aged husband. At the funeral, she played the role of the distraught housewife beautifully. However, if Damon ever flashed in her line of sight, she forgot where she was, who was around her, and latched on to him.

Certainly it hadn't been any of his business to alert Damon to any of this. No one could get through his thick scalp unless he was amiable to listen to reason. Which in most cases Damon could be obtusely irrational. Klaus had simply filed away the information.

Now he had a reason to use it.

"Should I be worried about something?" Bonnie grilled when Klaus' silence lasted far longer than it should have.

With a shake of his head, Klaus perched the block shaped tumbler on his knee. He pierced Bonnie with those hooded aqua eyes. "I think it would be wise for you to not let your guard down with her. Elise, for all her faults, she's a shrewd businesswoman. Meticulous when it comes to details. If anything, I'd say her showing up at the club was a calculated move. She wants you to know she's there. What she wants, that I cannot say. Just be careful, Bonnie."

And she would be. No one else would take her unawares.

Shrugging off that line of conversation, Bonnie made a go at discussing something less soul troubling. Although she and Klaus spent most of the day together, and they hit it off easier than anticipated, there was still a wealth of facts about the man she wanted to uncover.

"So you met Damon in college after giving him a bloody nose during a Lacrosse match?"

Klaus' grin would make a Cheshire cat proud. "Ah, that's a fond memory. He was and still is a cocky little shit who trash talked the entire week before the match. I decided to be the humble police and knock him down a peg or two or ten. I can't really be held at fault if he walked into my elbow while I was preparing to score."

"And I'm pretty sure that's exactly how it happened."

"Scout's honor." Pause. "You know, I was surprised when I heard he had married. I didn't find him the type to settle down, but after meeting you I can see why he did. Tell me," Klaus' voice eased into the sexy timbre he used to get his way with the ladies. "Was it love at first sight?"

Bonnie laughed impertinently. "No."

Intrigued by the edge in Bonnie's response, Klaus continued prodding. "In stages, then? You two fell in love in stages?"

"No," she shifted uneasily on the couch. "I didn't invite you out to talk about my love life. I want to have fun."

Realizing he was pushing her too far, Klaus backed off. "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable, Bonnie, and really it's none of my business why you married Damon. I can't help it. I'm just…"

"Curious," the ruffled woman filled in. "I guess I would be too considering the reputation my husband has. I can put one myth to rest. Damon is far from interesting."

Klaus laughed. He knew several individuals who would have disagreed. "Spoiled and entitled certainly nothing to write home about. Speaking of home, tell me more about yours."

"Later. I need another drink."

* * *

People responded to what stimulated them. To what moved them. Music that could move someone to tears. Words that could quicken someone to anger. A touch that could ease a troubled mind and soul. Yes, people were creatures that needed constant stimulation while others needed constant supervision.

He was the kind of man who thrived on pulling the strings in the fabric of someone's life. It worked for him considering he didn't have much of a conscience. Ruled by Mars, if there was discord happening between two individuals or more, he'd jump right in and begin playing both sides against the middle until everyone turned to him for help. This naturally gave him a godlike high he wouldn't trade for all the booze, drugs, pussy or dick in the world.

Licking his pink lips he studied his conquest as if he were prepping for the LSAT. His goal was to be king of this city and all kingdoms needed a queen and she was the perfect candidate. Plus, this would also help him settle a score that chafed him worse than going horseback in the nude.

The basketball star-cum-entrepreneur Zero, no last name, seductively eyed Damon Salvatore's beautiful wife with the same hunger and intensity of a burglar coming across a pile of cash. The emerald green mini dress she wore cinched and flattered her curvaceous attributes in all the right places, leaving those deliciously toned legs of hers exposed from the mid-thigh on down. It was taking a herculean effort on his end not to massage the half chub in his pants while he stared at her.

Zero watched Bonnie toss her hair back and laugh while she daintily sipped one of the best imported champagnes, rocking her hips a minutely on the half-moon black leather couch. Zero couldn't approach her now. Not with her Rottweiler of a cousin Jelena Howard—who yes he tried to step to and was consequently shut down, remained in hearing distance. His proposition was for Bonnie's ears only that no doubt would shock the 5'4" beauty right out of her Prada's.

Zero intended to shock her out of more than that.

So he held off, pretended he was enjoying the ear cunnilingus of the hopeless groupie who wouldn't stop writhing on his dick, or pawing at his chest.

Damon Salvatore might have thought he was fooling the world by putting on the best Broadway production he and his wife were crazy in love with one another. Admittedly, Zero had never seen a functional monogamous relationship in his life, and avoided them at all personal costs; however, he was no stranger to the perpetuation theatrics and propaganda of selling a romance that did not exist.

There was no love, no _real_ love between the Salvatore's and Zero was going to wholeheartedly bank on that. From the way Bonnie's shoulder rubbed with that Swedish dickhead Klaus Mikaelson, she didn't appear to be in a funk her husband wasn't out painting the town red with her. In fact, she looked as happy as a freshman at her first college party to have one night away from the asshole. That spoke volumes to Zero.

Blindly he kissed the groupie though his eyes remained planted on his target. He wasn't going to let her out of her sight.

* * *

"All right, you want to have fun then let's have at it. Get off your ass. I want to see you move if you know how to dance, that is," Klaus smiled glibly and peered down on a peeved looking Bonnie.

Jelena having heard the shady remark came to her cousin's rescue, "Don't try to play her. Of course she knows how to work it. She's related to me."

"That's right," Bonnie rose steadily from the couch more than impressed she didn't teeter right over. She had reached her alcohol limit and knew it would serve in her best interest not to drink another drop of liquor. "Jelena isn't the only cheerleader turned dancer in the family."

A sandy blond eye lifted. "Well then, by all means make me eat my words," Klaus waved his hand toward the makeshift dance floor.

Jelena pulled a reluctant Terrance up who sat his half-empty tumbler of vodka on a nearby table.

"You know I don't dance," Terrance reminded his girlfriend while he tucked his shirt neatly into his slacks.

"Get over yourself and come on."

The Playground wasn't a place to engage in dance battles. Yet people accommodated the group of four as they maneuvered their way out of VIP to the main area of the private club.

The two women faced one another and winked at each other. Jelena signaled the DJ and the music automatically switched to something fast and drum heavy.

Bonnie lost herself in the music. Letting go. Shedding layers of mentally oppressive skin that suffocated her. Popping her back, flipping her hair, and doing all sorts of seductive moves, Bonnie twirled her hips in elliptical figure eights drying out a lot of tongues in the process. It struck a chord of her femininity and she felt as sexy as she looked. She bent slightly and made her booty clap. Jelena grinned in approval.

If Damon were to see her like this, completely and totally uninhibited he'd probably call her a fraud for holding out on him. She carried herself as a prim and proper Ice Queen in public and even in private with him mostly so he wouldn't get any ideas. So he wouldn't be able to say he knew her. It seemed petty and selfish but Bonnie saw it as a way of self-preservation to keep at least one thing from her old life to herself.

Klaus hovered behind her doing a simple two step mostly too enthralled to do anything flamboyant. The only times he touched Bonnie was to dip her when she remembered he was there. She was a sight to behold and if he didn't have old fashioned morals when it came to the institution of marriage, he might try his hand at seducing Bonnie to let him slither between her thighs. As it stood, Klaus would be more than happy to cockblock any of the drooling pussyhounds who spied Bonnie with lascivious intent.

But fuck, it was _hard _to stop his eyes from dropping below her waist and leering goofily.

In her semi-inebriated state, Bonnie could spot several men standing on the outskirts watching her. If they could get away with it, bearing she acquiesced, they'd take her up against the nearest wall. A rush took fire to her blood, and though she knew it would be for the best to end the peepshow, Bonnie defiantly kept going.

Just because she was married didn't mean she couldn't have fun. _Wife gone wild, _Bonnie thought and giggled.

One face in the crowd momentarily caught and held her attention. Bonnie recognized him as one of the Devil players but his name escaped her. He smiled and held up a glass, watched her, and then looked away.

The second the music slowed down so did Bonnie. She fanned her hot face, hugged Jelena who really wasn't big on PDA, and then sauntered over to the bar with Klaus in tow.

"I stand corrected," Klaus leaned his hip along the bar. "I never would have suspected you had that in you. You're a woman of many talents and I'm one blessed bastard I got to see them."

Bonnie beamed proudly and ignored the dark cloud that was beginning to form overhead. She got like this sometimes. One minute having the time of her life, feeling genuine happiness, and with the snap of the fingers the Grim Reaper stood in front of her taking his scythe to her joy.

Klaus intuitively picked up on the shift simply by the darkening of her eyes and countenance. "Bon…"

"No, I'm…what time is it?"

"Time…" a new voice interrupted.

Both Klaus and Bonnie pivoted to stare at the interloper.

"…for me to buy you a drink. After a performance like that you not only worked up a sweat but a thirst as well."

Bonnie blushed. She gave the man an undercover once over. He wasn't cute or ugly, but fell into some medium of attractive depending on the light. She didn't understand what his hair was doing. It was like he told his barber he wanted a buzz cut but then lost his nerve before he could finish.

"That's okay. I need to head to the ladies room. Excuse me," she scurried away amid objections.

Klaus and Zero locked horns.

Zero splintered the silence. "That was Damon Salvatore's wife, right?"

"It is which makes her off limits to you." Klaus might not like Salvatore, but Bonnie was good people and didn't need to tangle with anymore sharks. And that's precisely the vibe he was getting from the douche with the Gumby inspired haircut.

Zero grinned. "But she's not off limits to you? Now that doesn't seem fair. Give her my regards," the man tipped his head and wondered off.

In the ladies room, Bonnie wet a paper towel, folded it neatly, and dabbed her forehead with it. She could feel it coming on. Her breathing turned restrictive, and the world couldn't make up its mind on which way was up or down.

She gazed at her reflection. "You're going to be all right. It's just a phase. It'll pass like it always does. Don't let it bring you down."

Even hearing herself speak the words, Bonnie didn't really believe them.

* * *

**Tokyo, Japan**

"_Hi, you've reached the voicemail of Bonnie Bennett. I'm currently away from my phone so please leave your name and number and I'll be sure to call you back at my earliest convenience. Thanks and have a good day."_

The beep blared in Damon's ear. He hated leaving voicemail. The fifteen hour time difference didn't leave him much of a choice. It was close to one in the morning in Los Angeles.

"Hey, little wife just calling to let you know things are running smoothly for once. Call me back. I don't care what time it is there or here. I want to hear your voice. Sayōnara."

An unsettled feeling coiled around Damon's spine. Something about him being away this time in comparison to others gave him the peculiar sensation a ball may start rolling. What that ball may be he had no obvious clue.

At least one bulletin point on his list of problems had been scratched out permanently. His PI had pulled through. Found evidence that while yes Elise had been pregnant, she miscarried during her second trimester. The estimated time of conception coincided with Damon and his then love Tatia vacationing in Greece which meant he wasn't the father.

Elise fabricating a tale about having a living son was a sure sign the bitch was crazy. No, those words she wanted him to say to this child, what she meant were the baby's cremated ashes. Did the small part of him that gave a damn about other's feelings feel bad Elise lost a part of herself and his father—assuming Giuseppe sired that child, of course. But he wasn't going to allow her to hang that over his head and wreck his marriage or his life.

Damon was mastering that all on his own.

Over and over in his mind he remembered Bonnie's behavior. The fact she struck him, the way she kissed him as if their temporary separation really would affect her…Damon had mixed feelings on everything. In many ways, it felt like a goodbye.

Discomfort rolled in his belly. Preemptive measures would be needed to kill whatever this feeling was. He called his primary assistant Trenice who was still in LA manning things in his absence.

As soon as the call connected, Damon barked out three strict orders. "Book Bonnie a first class plane ticket to Virginia and set her up at that Stoneridge retreat, make sure she gets the royal treatment. And make dinner reservations at the nicest restaurant in Mystic Falls for her and her family. Bill everything to my Amex. Thanks, Trenice."

Yep, Damon had no qualms using Bonnie's family against her to make himself look good in their eyes. He wouldn't have to lift a finger, figuratively speaking, to defend his case that being married to him wasn't a death sentence. Not like the one Llewellyn could possibly face should Damon make sure the evidence he had against the murderer fell into the appropriate hands.

Pleased with his sly manipulation, Damon winked at his reflection and finished dressing for his upcoming meeting with the board of directors.

A knock sounded on his suite door. Striding through the opulent living room, Damon checked the peephole and froze.

His heartbeat kicked up in velocity, and he blew out a breath prior to throwing the door open. Damon had to force himself _not _to blink.

"What are you doing here…Tatia?"

Chapter end.

**A/N: **Anyone still undecided if Klaus can be trusted? How do you feel about the revelation that Damon isn't a father? Zero is not one of my original characters. He's another character from VH1's series Hit the Floor. Personally I don't like this character but he's a devious bastard and he's got a vendetta against Damon; that dude is just racking up in enemies, and yet another skeleton from his closet makes an appearance. And what exactly is going on with Bonnie? Thoughts? Opinions? Guesses? Thanks so much for reading!


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